The Reason
by Jemppy
Summary: There is a reason for every action, every emotion, every word; just sometimes, in high school, it is hard to find your reason. (DylanMarco, SpinnerPaige, SeanEllie, and more)
1. Destination

**AN: **Hey, this is my first ever Degrassi fic. Inspired by the CD of the same title, The Reason by _Hoobastank_ and in fact at the begining of each part is some lyrics from songs off of that CD.

As of right now, the pairings in this are going to be: Marco/Dylan, Paige/Spinner and Ellie/Sean; others will be formed and others will be broken.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Degrassi: TNG or Hoobastank

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**Part** **1: **Destination

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_So why does there only have to be one correct philosophy?  
I don't want to go and follow you just to end up like one of them  
And why are you always telling me what you want me to believe?  
I'd like to think that I can go my own way and meet you in the end.  
- "Same Direction"_

----------------------------  
There was an incessant knocking.  
  
Paige Michalchuk blearily rolled over to spare a glance at her alarm clock. The glaring red LCD  
numbers shined a bright 1:42 AM in her dark room. Too asleep to really comprehend what had  
awaken her, she made to roll back over and fall back into dreaming.  
  
Another round of loud knocking disturbed her once again.  
  
Making the connection that someone knocking on their front door at almost 2 in the morning was  
never a good thing, Paige shot up in bed and fumbled to her door.  
  
As she made her way out of her room and into the hallway, she was met with her equally tired-  
looking brother. Dylan Michalchuk looked as if his eyes were hardly open as he stumbled  
alongside his sister en route to the source of their wakefulness.   
  
The siblings met eyes for a brief moment; Paige arched her eyebrow in question and Dylan merely  
answered with a silent shrug.  
  
The knocks were quieter; it seemed like their visitor was about to give up. At the foot of the  
stairs, Paige and Dylan were met by their parents as they emerged from their first floor bedroom.  
  
"Dylan? Paige?" their mom asked, worry creeping into her voice; she also had decided that any  
late-night visitor wouldn't be bearing good news.  
  
"Dunno'" Dylan answered, stifling a yawn but he was the first to reach the front door and undo  
the deadbolt.  
  
Paige was hit by a blast of icy air as the open door revealed a shivering Marco del Rossi on their  
front stoop; a beaten looking duffle bag rested at his feet.  
  
He met four sets of shocked eyes from beneath a fringe of black hair, "I had no where else to go."

------------------------------------------

Breakfast felt odd to her as she slid into the padded dining room chair. Paige rubbed at her eyes  
and stared at her brother from across the table.  
  
"You're eating Lucky Charms?" she blinked. "What happened to your Corn Flakes health reign?"  
  
Dylan looked nonplused as he steadily shoveled the offending cereal into his mouth. After a  
swallow, he replied. "I felt the need for an OD of sugar."  
  
"Well they're mine, so pass them here." Paige grabbed the box from Dylan and poured herself a  
large bowl.  
  
They both ate in silence for a few minutes before Paige felt the need to break it. "Where's....?" she  
trailed off as Dylan's eyes shot up.  
  
"Still asleep."  
  
"Is he going to school today?"  
  
"As far as I know, no. He was exhausted."  
  
Paige nodded and ate a few more bites. "Why did he come here? Why not go to Ellie's or  
something? She's like his best friend."  
  
Dylan seemed to space off looking at the Lucky Charms box. "Well, I'm sure it was because her  
apartment is across town and ours was the closest house he could walk to at 1 in the morning."  
  
"You take the romance out of everything." Paige muttered dryly but turned serious once again.  
"Why did he leave his home?"  
  
Dylan adapted a very Paige-like 'duh' look. "Why do you think? He finally came out to his  
parents. They didn't accept it and kicked him out." he grew thoughtful. "Though, I should have  
known that would have been the response he would get from when I first met his parents."  
  
"Yeah, I can see that."  
  
They both lapsed into silence for another stretch of time.   
  
"What did you and mom and dad talk about after they sent me back upstairs?" Paige interrupted  
the quiet again.  
  
"'She says prying...'" Dylan mumbled under his breath.  
  
"Hey, I have a right to know. He is my friend too."  
  
"They just wanted to know more what was going one between us and whatever. And they said  
that he could stay with us for as long as he wanted."  
  
"That's good. What is going between you two?"  
  
"'She says prying again.'" Dylan grinned quietly and stood to take his empty bowl to the sink.  
  
Paige sat back in her seat and glared at her brother. "Well?"  
  
"I need to go get ready for school. You should too, I'm not sure if we'll have enough time for all  
your make-up preparation." he effectively dodged her question made to run up the stairs.  
  
But he was met by a groggy looking Marco.  
  
Dylan stopped at the base of the stairs and grinned even more widely. "Hey, I though you'd sleep  
the whole day through."  
  
Marco just ran a hand through his hair and muttered, "...school."  
  
"Hon, you can afford to miss one day." Paige pointed out from her spot still at the table.  
  
He shrugged slightly, pushing past Dylan to join Paige at the table. "We have Miss H's wildlife  
test today, remember?" he took in the table's contents and his eyes lit up at the box of cereal that  
was open on it. "You guys have Lucky Charms? May I have some?"  
  
Paige nodded quietly and met her brother's gaze while Marco busied himself with getting some  
breakfast. Dylan mouthed three words to her.  
  
_He's ignoring it_

_--------------------------------------------_

Emma Nelson stared blankly into her locker. It was five minutes until the bell would ring,  
signaling the start of her first class. She knew that she needed to grab her book report as Kwan  
was expecting a presentation as soon as that bell sounded. But all of her carefully planned notes  
and words were gone in the instant that she opened her locker door.  
  
There, taped in the inner wall, that was usually hidden by a hastily thrown coat or over shirt, was  
an old picture of herself and Manny.  
  
Staring at the picture like she had never seen the two girls before, she felt a sudden deep emotion.  
In the whirlwind of her break-up with Sean, Snake and cancer, and her growing feelings for Chris,  
she never had the time to completely grieve for the loss of her best friend.  
  
Manny had shared a lot with her over the years; from grade school throughout their junior years,  
they had stuck beside each other. But inevitably change took its normal course. While Emma had  
felt her mind grow and expand which each new crusade or obsession, Manny reveled in the  
growth of her body and sexuality.  
  
Now it seemed like physical proof that sex and intelligence weren't as compatible as people would  
like to believe.  
  
She wouldn't lie to herself, she had been raised with the feelings of feminism and the idea that  
Manny had turned herself in the very embodiment of the threat to free-female thinkers  
everywhere, grated on her nerves. She had literally turned herself into an object for boys and  
Emma knew that she looked down on people like that.  
  
It was painful to realize that she had begun to look down on her best friend.  
  
In reverse, Emma had to admit that Manny had begun to look down on her as well. In a sick way,  
Manny saw herself far more mature that Emma was; more womanly in the ways of the world.  
  
Yet, what she wouldn't give just to play dolls in the backyard of her home once more with  
Manny. What she wouldn't give just swoon over their favorite TV stars or love letters passed  
around.  
  
Reaching into the locker to retrieve her book report, Emma grimaced as even her report reminded  
her of the rift that had grown between them. She had chosen a book about an adopted girl's fight  
to find her birth mom.  
  
It forcibly reminded her of the chance that Manny never gave the baby that she had. Her mom had  
found herself in the very same situation, yet she didn't view her pregnancy as a mistake. Even if  
she would have given Emma up for adoption, she'd still be alive.  
  
Maybe that's why she had felt so strongly about abortion, it could have been her. Once choice and  
she wouldn't have her life.  
  
Abortion just became one of the many things Emma and Manny now disagreed on.  
  
Sighing she quietly closed her locker door and trudged off to first period English knowing that  
she would have to look her former best friend in the eyes as she recounted the story of a girl who  
was granted life at birth, even though it seemed to have resulted from a mistake.  
  
And it would be a very familiar mistake, in Manny's mind.

-------------------------------------------

Ellie had known she was going to be late for school five minutes before she had even gotten  
dressed that morning. Elation and tardiness had come in the form of a long-distance call from  
Kabul.  
  
Her dad sounded tired yet happy over the crackling connection. Though some words had been  
lost in translation, Ellie managed to get across that she loved him and learned that he was being  
transferred to an American base in Kuwait for several weeks and then he would be home.  
  
Though she had been late too many times before, Ellie wouldn't ever pass up a chance to talk to  
her dad. His calls were rare and she cherished each one. But she made a valiant effort not to be  
too late today.  
  
She was in luck that she arrived only a few minutes after the first bell, when everyone was making  
their way into classrooms, which meant that she had at least two minutes to get to her locker and  
across the building to her history class.  
  
As she raced pass clumps of dawdling students, she barely avoided colliding with Emma Nelson, a  
Grade 9 and her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. She tossed a quick sorry over her shoulder, but the  
other girl was too immersed in her thoughtful stride to her own class.   
  
Up a head she saw her best friend Marco del Rossi walking slowly with his...(just?) friend? Dylan  
Michalchuck and usually she'd slow and walk the rest of the way to their shared class together,  
but Marco and Dylan were engaged in an intense conversation that she didn't particularly feel like  
disturbing.  
  
Yet the fact that he wasn't rushing to class was surprising to her; Marco was the most studious of  
all of her friends and was never late.  
  
She managed to reach her locker in record time even though that meant several close calls and  
one impatient shove to a Grade 8. To her faint (and pleasant) surprise, Sean Cameron was  
slouched against the metal row of lockers, giving off his usual 'don't mess with me' air.  
  
"Hey." she smiled breathlessly as she finally slowed.  
  
"Hey," he gave her a quick kiss on her cheek as she was already moving to grab her history text  
from underneath a feathered black boa (why was that in there anyway?) and a month old Snickers  
bar.  
  
"Why are you late?" Sean asked, not perturbed by her slightly dismissive actions.  
  
"My dad called this morning." she managed a bright smile from underneath the boa as she  
rummaged for the illusive book.  
  
"Cool, what's up with him?" Ellie had to appreciate his interest in her dad.  
  
"He's been transferred to Kuwait, then he'll be home in about five weeks."   
  
"Kuwait? That's still in Middle East right?"  
  
"South of Iraq, actually. But infinitely better than Afghanistan." giving up in her quest for her  
history book, finding only her missing algebra homework from two weeks ago, she straightened  
back up smiling at Sean. "I might as well borrow Marco's book when we are in class."  
  
They both turned to glance down the quickly emptying hallway in time to see the elder  
Michalchuck wrap his arms around the younger boy. Ellie adverted her eyes as smirked slightly.  
Yet it dropped from her face as she caught a faint look of disgust cross Sean's.  
  
"Don't you start." she preemptively warned.  
  
Sean raised his hands in silent defense and then quickly wrapped them around her body and pulled  
her close. "I've got to get to Kwan's." he whispered, "I'll see you at lunch?"  
  
She nodded and allowed him to steal a quick kiss before he left in the other direction. Sighing, she  
turned to see Marco walking towards her sans Dylan. She might as well be late with him; they  
were both going in the same direction anyways. 


	2. Control

**AN: **I've been having a hard time uploading this...but thanks for the reviews on this! I am having a fun time writing this, probably from my seceret love of writing teen dramas. :P

**Disclaimers: **I don't own Degrassi: TNG or Hoobastank. I don't know if it is ever mentioned what their history teacher is named, so I just made it up. That will be the extent of OCs in this story. (_I really dislike OCs)_

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**Part 2: **Control

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_I've done everything as you say, I followed your rules without question  
I thought it would help me see things clearly  
But instead of helping me to see, I look around and it's like I'm blinded.  
I'm spinning out of control...  
- "Out of Control"_

_-----------------------------------------  
_  
It _hurt._  
  
It was like a gaping wound inside of his chest that no one else could see.  
  
It was like someone had shot him with a shotgun directly in his chest and then he had pulled a  
shirt over the hole and no one could see the blood yet.  
  
Marco del Rossi knew that feeling like this was to be expected, he had even looked on the internet  
about the possible reactions from parents when their child came out. And yes, his parents'  
response was scenario two.  
  
They disowned him, kicked him out, and left him to his own devices.  
  
It felt odd to be right back at school the very next day. But he knew that he had to move on, he  
wasn't going to flunk out of school just because his parents were being pig-headed. He had tried  
to explain that to Dylan and Paige on the ride over to Degrassi, but he could see the pity clouding  
their eyes as they stared at him through the rearview mirror as he sat in the backseat of Dylan's  
car.   
  
They didn't get that this was just a hurtle. He needed to focus on other ordinary things so that this  
hurt inside would go away. If he dwelled on it, then he would be drawn into the dark.  
  
Watching Dylan walk the other way to his own class, Marco felt the hurt more acutely that ever  
before. The hallway suddenly seemed vast and empty.  
  
Yet looking forward, he saw he saw Ellie standing there waiting for him. She was late again and  
she had seen that he was too. For a moment, to Marco at least, she seemed to be superimposed  
over the Degrassi backdrop. Like when they had dated to cover his sexuality, once again she  
seemed like a base for normality. As of right now, no one but Paige and Dylan knew what had  
happened last night and seeing Ellie that morning made him want it to stay that way.  
  
As long as Paige didn't open her mouth to Spinner.   
  
"Hey." Ellie greeted as Marco came up beside her. "Why so late?"  
  
Marco shrugged, "I was talking to Dylan, guess I wasn't paying attention." Better blame any  
strangeness today on a crush, right?  
  
Ellie seemed to buy it, "Dylan huh? Are you guys....yet?"  
  
They began to finally make their way to history as he shrugged again. "I don't really know."  
  
Ellie threw her head back and groaned. "Will you two just please get on with it? It is completely  
agonizing to sit there at lunch or in the halls or at the front office and see you two throw those  
sexual-tension laden looks at each other!"  
  
"'Sexual-tension laden looks'?" Marco gave her a fish-eyed look.  
  
"Yes, sexual-tension. Laden. Looks." they had reached their classroom, "Now you go in first so  
Mr. Young can yell at you and I can sneak in."  
  
Marco paused with his hand on the classroom door. "Thanks," he commented dryly, "you're a  
true friend."  
  
Ellie gave him a little push inside, "You know I am."

---------------------------------  
  
Spinner Mason hated history. It was a proven fact that if you took one Spinner, put him in one  
desk, in room 12 for 90 minutes of boring dates, he'd be asleep in under five minutes or less. It  
was almost like some strange math equation.  
  
_S plus 1(12R plus 90D) = minutes until sleep_  
  
Or something like that. Maybe all that studying with Jimmy and Marco was paying off when came  
to his algebra. Paige had volunteered to help him with his history but when ever they settled down  
on a couch to study they always ended up making out instead. There was just some sort of  
magical connection from the rise of Communism to kissing.  
  
At least he thought they were learning about Communism. Something about red, Soviets, and  
war. Now he didn't mind hearing about world annihilation, but he wasn't a complete idiot; if they  
had destroyed the world in the past, he'd know about it.  
  
Well, maybe not, seeing as how he wouldn't exist and all. All the more proof that they didn't blow  
up the world whenever Young was talking about.  
  
Why were they learning about this anyway?  
  
Deciding that flipping his pen over his thumb was infinitely more exciting than whatever was  
being droned on about, Spinner began to count how many times he successfully flipped his pen  
about without dropping it.  
  
His highest count so far had been 43.  
  
The door to the classroom opened to reveal a tardy Marco del Rossi and Ellie Nash. Their  
teacher, Mr. Young paused in his lecture about....whatever he was lecturing about...(was it  
something about missiles?) to give them both a stern look.  
  
"Mr. Del Rossi, Ms. Nash, class started well over 5 minutes ago. Do either of you have a late  
slip?"   
  
They both shook their heads and slunk off to their desks with Young's threat of detention if it  
ever happened again. Spinner's interest was piqued; Ellie was always late, but Marco was a  
stickler for rules and never seemed to have been late before.  
  
What he had privately dubbed his own personal 'spidy-senses' kicked into gear as he turned  
slightly in his desk and shot Marco a questioning look.  
  
The Italian just merely looked slightly embarrassed and shrugged in response.  
  
"...on your projects." Young's voice broke into Spinner's attempt of mind-reading.  
  
Whoa, wait, projects? Spinner's hand shot in the air.   
  
"Yes, Mr. Mason?" Young sounded slightly exasperated.  
  
"Projects? What projects?" Spinner was confused.  
  
"If you had been listening Mr. Mason, instead of focusing on that pen of yours, you would have  
heard that beginning today you will be paired up to work on presentation of an important, pivotal  
even during the Cold War." Spinner made to open his mouth, but Young anticipated his next  
question, "I will pair you all up."  
  
He proceeded to divide the class up and assign them an event. When he reached Spinner's name  
he announced, "Gavin Mason and Marco del Rossi, you'll both have the Cuban Missile Crisis.  
Please explain America and the Soviet Union's reasoning behind the event."  
  
Hah, he knew he had heard something about missiles.

----------------------------------------------  
  
Across the room, Craig Manning's stomach had just filled with lead.  
  
His ears were still ringing with Young's assignment.   
  
_"Craig Manning and Ashley Kerwin, you'll both have the Vietnam conflict and it's importance  
to the perpetuation of the cold war."_  
  
He felt as if he was still right in the middle of his own personal cold war with Ashley still. He had  
apologized in the only way he knew how. She didn't fully seem to accept it, but didn't fully  
wasn't outright refusal of his apology, so he counted that as a good thing.  
  
But they really hadn't spent 'quality' time together since the band competition (read: they hadn't  
been throwing barbs at each other) and in all reality, it really had silenced into a cold war. Now  
they were going to be forced into working conditions together.  
  
Trying not to be too obvious, Craig glanced over his shoulder to see how Ashley was taking the  
news of their partnership.  
  
She was currently leaning across the aisle to whisper to her friend Ellie. He bet she was trashing  
him, or declaring how horrible this project would be, how he'd ruin her perfect score, how much  
she was going to do all the work, how incredibly attractive he looked today....okay probably not  
the last one, but the others seemed plausible.  
  
He wouldn't deny it, she had several good points. Okay, she was mostly in the right; all in the  
right. But she would have to deal sooner or later right? And she would needed to swallow her  
pride quickly because he needed to get a good grade on this thing if he wanted to pull his grade  
up from dismal.

----------------------------------------  
  
Emma Nelson sat in her desk staring at her book in front of her. Liberty Van Zandt was currently  
in the front of Ms. Kwan's room giving her book report. Inside, she was debating on actually  
tuning down her anti-abortion-filled report just so Manny wouldn't feel as if she was being  
attacked.  
  
But when had she ever censored her views for anyone else?  
  
"Emma?" Ms. Kwan's voice broke through her inner debate. "Are you ready for yours?"  
  
Emma nodded and slowly walked to the front of the room; she knew what she needed to do. Why  
should she edit what she believes, whether Manny took it as an insult or not; besides, it's not like  
they were friends now anyway.

-------------------------------------------  
  
"That is totally brutal!" Paige commiserated as she sat down at the lunch table that Ashley Kerwin  
and Hazel Aden already occupied. "Working with Craig? Can you do it without killing him?"  
  
Ashley rolled her eyes and smiled softly, "It's not like that anymore. I mean, we've reached a  
truce almost."  
  
Paige and Hazel stared at her with disbelieving looks.  
  
"Alright, I still can barely stand to be in the same room as him, but at least we aren't at each  
other's throats." Ashley shook her head, "Can we please get off of the Craig topic?"  
  
"Lets move on to why both you," Hazel gestured to Paige, "and your brother look like you've  
been up all night. Plus you were late meeting me this morning."  
  
Ashley turned her attention to Paige and eyed her critically, "Y'know, she has a point. You look a  
bit exhausted."  
  
Paige sighed and abandoned her food in favor of her diet soda. "Look, something happened last  
night that I don't think I'm suppose to talk about. At least not yet."  
  
Hazel groaned. "You can't just reveal that much and not tell us!"  
  
Ashley nodded in agreement, "She's right Paige, you've said this much, you're committed to  
telling us the rest."  
  
Paige looked over her shoulder at where Dylan was eating his lunch by himself. He looked like  
Hazel described, like he had stayed up all night long. There was dark circles under his eyes and his  
hair was more unkept than it normally looked. Not to mention he had abandoned any other drink  
in favor for mas quantities of coffee; he was acting like the only thing keeping him going was the  
caffeine.  
  
She didn't know where Marco was, but she was betting that he looked just as tired as they were,  
probably even more. He had seemed the epitome of exhaustion during classes earlier and she  
swore she saw him dozing off during Armstrong's lecture on factoring.  
  
But she didn't think that he would want everyone to know what had transpired late last night just  
so people could understand why the three of them were tired.  
  
"Guys, I just can't say anything right now." she finally responded to the disappointed looks of her  
friends.  
  
They both looked as if they were going to press her for more information but luckily at that  
moment, her boyfriend Spinner Mason and Hazel's boyfriend Jimmy Brooks dropped their greasy  
food covered trays on their tables.  
  
"I don't know man, but Sheila's food keeps getting more and more questionable." Jimmy pointed  
out as he took a stab at the shapeless lump on the center of his tray.  
  
Spinner already had a large mouthful, "I 'fink 's goo'" some chewed food sprayed onto the table  
much to the other's disgust.  
  
"Spin!" Paige cried, though she was thanking for her boyfriend's timely, if gross, distraction to  
divulging the occurrences of last night.  
  
Hopefully they've already forgotten.

----------------------------------------------  
  
In _zone one:_ Dylan Michalchuk, possible boyfriend, though all the fine details have yet to be  
worked out and one who knew of his crap-tastic situation.  
  
_Zone two:_ Paige Michalchuk and her following. Less obvious than Zone One, but still would have  
to endure the silent looks of pity thrown across the table. More than one if she spilled already.  
  
_Zone three_ looked the safest. Ellie Nash sitting her normal reclusive corner. Luckily Ashley was  
spending her obligatory one day a week with Paige's crew so Ellie was alone. Once again Ellie  
became his shield.  
  
Marco gripped his lunch tray in an white knuckle hold as he started over to Ellie's solitary table.  
But before he reached there, Sean Cameron appeared in all of his white-rapper-wannabe glory and  
made his Zone Three inaccessible.  
  
He turned directions quickly so Ellie wouldn't notice his attempt to join her; he was well aware  
that she would welcome him but feeling like the awkward third person was not a feeling he  
wanted to add into his already mixed emotions.  
  
Deciding on Paige, he quietly joined the group. Paige was currently berating Spinner for doing  
something gross (which he was personally glad he had missed) and Hazel was making starry eyes  
at Jimmy who was returning them full force all while Ashley sent subconscious glares over at  
where Craig was eating.  
  
Everyone seemed to self-absorbed at the moment to notice if he was acting strange today.   
  
Paige gave him a pointed look as he sat down. She was worried, he knew that. On the drive over  
to school this morning, she had asked how he was doing at least five times in that many minutes.  
Dylan had seemed slightly better about, understanding his silence, but he too was pushing.  
  
He ignored the look and let the conversations rise and fall around him and focused purely on the  
motions of eating. Being there reminded him of when he went through his first and only pseudo  
date with Hazel. Like then, he was feeling trapped; like he was about to lose control. Only now,  
he wasn't going to freak, he could take the mixed emotions.  
  
Everything was just fine.


	3. Lonely

**AN:** Thank you all again for reviewing, I really appreciate it! My parts are getting longer as all the stories gain momentum. So I hope you all enjoy this. As of now, Spinner is the funest to write. He can be so goofy but cool, I think he is an interesting character. And Craig is the hardest to write. But meh, oh and the "Kingdom under some guy named Pyhlum" and the grandma's soup comments by Spinner refer to the little ditty to help people remember the animal class sysetm. It is something like King Philip Came Over For Grandma's Soup = Kingdom Phylum Class (can't remember the O) Family Genus and Species...now that I've bored you...

**Disclaimers:** I don't own Degrassi: TNG, Hoobastank, or the Lion King.

* * *

**Part 3:** Lonely

* * *

_What happened to us?  
We used to be so perfect, now we're lost and lonely,  
What happened to us?  
And deep inside I wonder, did I lose my only?  
- "What happened to us?"_

----------------------------------

"You _bitch_."  
  
Emma Nelson spun around as soon as she heard the hateful hiss. Standing there, in an ensemble of  
too tight and brightly garish fabrics, was Manny Santos. Underneath the "playa" hat and hoop  
earrings, she wore a look of narrowed eyebrows and blazing eyes.  
  
"Excuse me?" was all Emma could manage, the statement flung at her as she had been heading to  
her locker during the lunch period had thrown her for a loop.  
  
"Your report. You deliberately tried to humiliate me!" Manny planted her hands on her hips and  
glared. "Y'know, I'm really tired of your 'holier than thou' attitude."  
  
Emma briefly remembered the time when Alex had said the same thing about her as well, that was  
shortly before she had kicked the crap out of her. "I didn't do it as an attack on you."  
  
Manny let out a derisive laugh. "Oh sure. You just can't handle the fact that my actions went  
against your _moral fiber_. You just love looking down on me, don't you?"  
  
"You need to stop being so self-absorbed. Why must you think everything I do is an attempt to  
degrade and hurt you?" Emma turned away from her former friend in hopes of a quick get away.  
  
"Me? Self-absorbed?" Manny laughed again, pulling Emma's attention back to her. "Look at  
yourself, princess, you think the world revolves around you. But you're really just a scared little  
girl, aren't you Em'?"  
  
Emma took a deep breath to try and contain herself. "Manny, I don't want to get into this right  
now. Just walk away."  
  
"Walk away? After you just slandered me in Kwan's class?"  
  
Emma's resolve snapped. "'Slandered'? Oh look Manny is using big words now in a lame attempt  
to showing she has brains along with those boobs."  
  
"At least I have them."  
  
"You're comebacks are shrinking with your IQ."  
  
"I don't understand how I wasted so many years of my life being stuck as your little sidekick."  
Manny crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "Being friends with you had to be my biggest  
mistake."  
  
Emma froze as those words came out. Manny regretted, not having unprotected sex, not gaining  
an infamous reputation, or destroying relationships, but their years of friendship? It felt like a  
physical blow to her stomach.  
  
Manny looked smug at her silence.  
  
But all Emma could do was eye her sadly and leave her standing there in the middle of the hallway  
wondering what had happened to their friendship.

-------------------------------  
  
Spinner Mason wanted to bang his head against the lunch table as the bell rang, signifying the end  
to the lunch period. It was time for class, and not just any class, but science. The very same class  
that there was going to be a giant, huge, mammoth test in.  
  
He suddenly wished Sheila's food really was as poisonous as it looked so he could die right then  
and be spared the agony that was awaiting him under the guise of a really hot teacher.  
  
With sudden decisiveness, Spinner turned to his slightly geeky-at-times friend, Marco del Rossi.  
"Quick! Tell me everything we've ever learned in Ms. H's class, in small words, in under 5  
minutes! Go...now!" he awaited all the answers with a wide, expectant face.  
  
Marco just raised one dark eyebrow at him and proceeded to stare blankly.  
  
Spinner groaned. "Talk to me man! I am not ready for this!"  
  
Across the table, Spinner's other friend, Jimmy Brooks groaned in agreement. "I don't blame you!  
Comprehensive tests are the worse kind of wrong."  
  
Paige Michalchuk, Spinner's girlfriend, however, looked unimpressed. "Come now, honey-bee,  
we've studied constantly together. You should know this by now."  
  
In Spinner's mind, the only thing he could seem to remember were the jumbled thoughts of: Bees  
= bugs. Something about bees being similar to monkeys and cause death. Marco afraid of monkey  
death. (wait something about that didn't seem right) Animals all live in some kingdom under some  
Phylum guy. And something about soup and grandma's....don't forget Paige and her kisses and  
studying on her couch...which would lead to kissing...  
  
Oh man, he was going to fail.  
  
"I really should just give up hope now. There is no way I am going to pass this exam." Spinner  
gave into temptation and banged his forehead against the table. "I barely remember any animal  
stuff, much less any thing that involves DNA."  
  
Marco suddenly interrupted his stream of dread with a huge yawn.  
  
Spinner looked at him, slightly affronted. "Excuse me, am I boring you, Del Rossi?"  
  
"Huh?" Marco rubbed at his eyes. "Oh sorry, I'm just kinda tired."  
  
"Yeah? You and Paige both." Spinner rolled his eyes as the group finally stood and shouldered  
their bags. "Why must school start so early? By the time the tough classes' tests come around  
we're too busy being exhausted to answer anything coherently!"  
  
Paige looped her arm through the crook of Spinner's and laid her head on his shoulder, "I  
understand you, Honey-bee, but I think school is finally getting to your head."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You used the word 'coherently' in a sentence; correctly I might add."  
  
Jimmy laughed from behind them as they all walked to their science class. "Yeah, man, and that is  
like a Grade 8? Vocab word? That's pretty advance for Spin."  
  
"Hah, hah, you can just shove it." Spinner glared over the top of Paige's blond hair, at Jimmy,  
who just gave him an innocent grin.  
  
"Spin, the test isn't gonna be that hard." Marco quietly spoke up. "We're not going over the  
DNA information during this test. This one is just dealing with the animal kingdom."  
  
"Yeah? And all I can seem to remember about the animal kingdom is that damn Lion King song  
that goes something like 'the ciiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiiiife!" to everyone's alarm, Spinner broke out in  
song.  
  
"Spin!" Marco looked shocked at the horrible off key performance, but he burst out in laughter.  
Spinner joined in, glad to be enjoying some moments of humor before the inevitable failure of the  
test. Laughing, he caught the expression on his girlfriend's face.  
  
Paige was staring at Marco, who was still laughing at Spinner's attempt to sing, and her  
expression looked troubled.

Spinner's 'spidey-senses' were tingling again.

----------------------------------------  
  
She was waiting for him as soon as he left the class.  
  
Ashley Kerwin seemed like she had been laying in wait for Craig Manning, and took the  
opportunity to pounce as he left science and he had been vulnerable from the vicious test.  
  
"Craig, I need to talk to you." was the first thing out of her mouth.  
  
He hadn't been prepared for this confrontation; he'd like several days advanced notice for one of  
their infamous Ash-Craig-(and inevitably about Manny) war of words. So like the great, inspired  
lyricist that he was, he responded with the articulate: "Huh?"  
  
Ashley rolled her eyes and pulled him away from the classroom door where he was causing a  
bottleneck to occur. "About the history project." her voice carried the undercurrent of _duh, you  
moron, why else would I lower myself to speaking the Scum-off-of-my-Shoe?  
_  
"Oh yeah, that Vietnam thing." he was too busy focusing on the contact that was made between  
her hand and his arm; she had yet to let go.  
  
"Yeah, that 'Vietnam thing'." there was the roll of the eyes again. "We don't have much time to  
do this project and I for one, do not want to screw this up and destroy my grade. So we need to  
get together and do this."  
  
"As in today?" Craig couldn't help but wonder where the confident Craig had gone and when had  
he been replaced by this stumbling dork?  
  
"Today would be good. When?" Ash was getting right down to business.   
  
"We're suppose to have band practice today. Working on a single for that recording deal." he  
added as an afterthought. "So how about tonight? You can come over and have some dinner with  
Joey and Angie. Then we can figure out the reason behind Vietnam."  
  
There was a flicker of emotion is Ashley's eyes as the reminder of his apology in the form of a  
song was brought up.  
  
"That sounds good."  
  
"Then if we finish and have some time, we can figure out the meaning of life. We can have that all  
down by tomorrow morning history." he couldn't believe it, but had made Ashley smile for the first  
time since their break-up.

------------------------------------

Ellie Nash violently threw her science notebook into her locker, relishing the resounding crash as  
it impacted the metal back. She was tired of these tests, she was tired of worrying about her  
grades, she was tired of the stress that was heaping on her shoulders.  
  
"Didn't do as well as you had hoped?" a voice asked from behind her.  
  
Spinning around, she met the slightly worried gaze of her friend Marco del Rossi. He was holding  
his own batch of science notes in his hand. "I blanked. I couldn't remember a damned thing." she  
answered. "You?"  
  
Marco slouched against the bank of lockers and shrugged. "I'll do okay." was all the response she  
got.  
  
Ellie peered at him as she made a pretense to be looking for something in her locker. "Is this the  
same Marco that freaked out about a B on your math test?"  
  
He shrugged again. "Some things are more important than just one test."  
  
Ellie had to drop her act of searching to stare at him. "Marco del Rossi? Sis you just say that there  
are more important things than tests?"  
  
Marco shrugged his discontented shrug that has become his trademark of late, "El', c'mon, you  
have to admit my annoying habit of obsessing over silly tests was getting old."  
  
"Marco, are you okay? You are acting really strangely." Ellie shut her locker and focused a  
penetrating look at her friend.  
  
He shoved his hands into his jeans and rocked back on to his heels. "Why are you looking at me  
like that El'? I've just decided to change some of my outlook." Marco paused and realized that he  
had dropped his notes onto the hallway floor; he bent down and retrieved them as Ellie continued  
to give him _the look_.  
  
"_Marco_." Ellie repeated.  
  
Marco finally met her gaze and was hit with the full force that _the look_ carried. Unfortunately for  
Ellie, he countered it with a never before seen dead look. He didn't even flinch under her stare.   
  
"_Ellie._"  
  
"You're not going to tell me what's wrong with you, are you?"  
  
There was the shrug again, it was really becoming annoying, and the equally disaffected response,  
"There is nothing to tell, El'." He looked over her shoulder, "Listen, there's Dylan. I'm getting a  
ride home with him. I'll see you tomorrow." with that he left her before she could rib him with  
any teasing remarks; leaving her without his customarily 'ciao'.  
  
She watched him meet up with the elder Michalchuk, silently vowing to figure out what was  
wrong with him.  
  
Ellie waited until he had disappeared out of the glass doors before finally getting ready to leave.  
Sean had decided to meet up with Jay and his friends after school to work on Jay's car or  
something like that. Cars weren't her specialty but she knew that boys needed their cars to be  
happy, so she just declined their invitation and decided to venture home and gage her mom's  
reaction to her dad's early morning call.  
  
When she had unlocked the front door, she knew that something was wrong. First was the stench  
of vodka, which wasn't entirely unusual, but it was so strong that it made her stomach roll in  
disgust; second was the beeping of the phone left off of the hook, and third was the sound of her  
mom sobbing.  
  
Dropping her bag, she rushed into the living room where her mom tended to take up residence on  
the couch. There, surrounded by blankets, empty vodka bottles, and the phone strewn half on the  
couch and half on the floor (and it confirmed that it was indeed off the hook) was her mom. She  
didn't look hurt, but tears were streaming down her face as she rocked back and forth on the  
soiled couch.  
  
This was completely opposite of any scenario that she had envisioned.  
  
"Mom? What's wrong?" she swooped down around her sobbing mother and pulled her into her  
arms. She couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the smell that emanated from her mom from the  
alcohol but she pulled her close anyway.   
  
"There was a call..." more crying, "from the army..." her mom trailed off into a particularly loud  
wail.  
  
"Dad? Did he call again?" worry crept into her voice.  
  
"No, it was some officer...he...oh God...he said that your dad was hurt..." her mom dissolved into  
tears again.  
  
Ellie felt her body freeze. Her dad had gotten hurt? Did he call from Kuwait just this morning?  
Wasn't that a safe outpost? "Mom," she started slowly. "Calm down and tell me exactly what they  
said." She couldn't help but feel as the adult in the house, with the way her mother was acting.  
  
"...said that he was sent on a supply mission in south Iraq." Ellie waited for the freash wave of  
tears to stop. "...the convoy was attack and he was hurt."  
  
"Hurt, not killed, right?"  
  
"Oh God, Eleanor, he lost his leg! He might as well be!" she shouted and pushed her daughter  
away and reached for a vodka bottle on the coffee table.  
  
Reeling, Ellie stood and stumbled into her room. She felt numb as she tried to process the  
information that her mom had shakily relayed to her.  
  
Her dad went out on another mission into the Iraq war-zone.  
  
That mission was attacked.  
  
His convoy was hit.  
  
He lost one of his legs and was hurt.  
  
She knew that he must have made it to a hospital safely for the Canadian armed forces to contact  
her mom, but everything seemed to be happening so quickly. She wished she had been the one to  
answer the phone.  
  
Thinking of the phone, she returned quickly to the living room and while her mom was  
swallowing a shot of vodka, she hung the phone back up and grabbed the cordless to retreat back  
into her room.  
  
She had to talk to someone.  
  
Ellie dialed the first numbers that came to her head; Sean. The phone rang and rang, no one, not  
even Tracker answered the phone. In the back of her mind, she remembered that Sean was with  
Jay.  
  
Pushing back the disappointment, she dialed another set of numbers, her best friend, Marco.  
Answering the phone was the thick and familiar accent of Marco's dad, Mr. Del Rossi.  
  
"_Hello, Del Rossi residence_?"  
  
"Mr. Del Rossi, this is Ellie, may I please speak with Marco?" she was amazed at how calm and  
polite she managed to keep her voice.  
  
"_There is no one here by that name!"_ was the bark that filled her ear.  
  
She stared at the receiver in shock. "Marco, your son." she tried again, wondering what was  
going on.  
  
"_I have no son_." There was a click and the dial tone resounded.  
  
Quietly, she turned off the phone and stared blankly around her room. She now knew why Marco  
was acting strangely. He had been disowned, she wasn't stupid, she knew how his family was like;  
probably because he came out to them. But as of right now he was alone, like her and that was all  
she could think of.  
  
She had no one to talk too. Unwittingly she felt her eyes be drawn to her math case that contained  
her compass, the compass that put scars on her arms.  
  
_Well that's not quite true, now is that?  
  
_She put the scars on her arms. Maybe she wasn't as alone as she thought she was. 


	4. Escape

**AN:** Hey, thanks all of you again for following this. I know it seems slow but I guess sometimes life is like that. I'm trying a different tatic with Marco in this, probably because I am kinda getting tired of all the fics where he is turned into a sniviling coward, but in most of those the authors managed to work it out so it is good, I don't think I could do that. Blah. Spinner and Dylan are waay too much fun to write. Dylan's mind rambles are the greatest. :P

**Disclaimers:** I don't own Degrassi: TNG or Star Trek: Voyager.

* * *

**Part 4: **Escape

* * *

_Another day goes by without any change,  
The feeling we live with still remains,   
We're stuck in a hole and we're searching for anything to hold onto,   
There has to be somewhere that we can be safe from the lives we live each day...  
- "Escape"_

_-----------------------------------_  
  
"Welcome to my life as the Dish-Bitch. Please deposit your dirty dishes into the dish tub and  
silverware into the suds and all glasses go into the glass-rack." Spinner Mason dead panned to his   
visitors to the dish pit of The Dot.  
  
Craig Manning and Jimmy Brooks exchanged looks and tried hard not to laugh. "So, uh, Spin,  
your boss just let us back real quick to ask you something." Jimmy started.  
  
Craig paused, staring at the large dish washer that occupied the space beyond Spinner that was  
currently emitting a loud whirring noise. "Yeah, we were wondering if you were gonna be able to  
make practice today. You neglected to mention that you were, uh, working."  
  
Spinner wiped his forehead; the dish pit, with the dish washer, the running hot water, and all the   
manual labor, grew to an unimaginable heat. "Sure, I'll be there, I just got called into help. He  
grinned and pointed to a metal square on the floor. "It's grease trap day."  
  
Jimmy eyed the square. "Grease trap? How long is that gonna take?"   
  
"We just clean out the vat that stores the kitchen's grease. All very messy and very gross." Spinner   
shuddered. "I suck it all up with a reject carpet vacuum and the smell sticks to everything."  
  
Craig and Jimmy exchange slightly disgusted looks.   
  
"Don't worry. I'll be done soon."  
  
Craig lounged against the glass-rack. "You'll take a shower before you come over, right?"  
  
Spinner laughed as he turned away from his friends to retrieve the vacuum cleaner. "Yeah, yeah.  
So have you guys talked to Marco?"  
  
Jimmy shook his head. "Nah, man, we were gonna ask you if you knew where he was. We didn't  
catch him after school".  
  
"My guess? Paige's house."  
  
"Why would he be there?" Craig asked in a moment of obliviousness.  
  
Jimmy raised his eyebrow at his friend's slight unawareness. "Dude, Dylan, Paige's brother."  
  
It clicked in Craig's mind. "Oh." it seems as if he had been missing some information during the  
Manny-Ashley debacle. "Are they, like together now?"  
  
Jimmy raised his hands in the 'I have no idea' gesture while Spinner suddenly became very  
interested in getting ready to suck the grease up.  
  
Craig had never really given it any thought when it had came out that Marco was gay; in the back  
of his mind he had always been kind of wondering about him anyway. So in all reality, he wasn't   
surprised. But as the events had progressed downhill in the world of sex for himself, he ignored  
that facet of Marco. Every now and then Marco would make some comment that would throw his  
sexuality into plain view (he was the only guy able to give sensible female emotional advice and  
his later scorn to Craig's two-girl relations) but Marco had never outright told him for himself that  
he was gay.  
  
After the moment of awkward silence, Jimmy cleared his throat. "Well, Craig and I will swing by  
Paige's and see if he is there, otherwise we'll all be at Craig's when you are done."  
  
Craig nodded. "Just don't take too long, man, Ash is coming over later so I'm gonna need you all  
out by, like, 7-ish."  
  
Spinner and Jimmy both turned to stare at him, "Ash?" Spinner asked.   
  
Craig nodded, fighting to stop the spreading of a smug smile. "Yeah, she's coming over for dinner,  
then we're working on that project."  
  
"Yeah, I heard about that," Jimmy motioned to the door so that they could get on their way. They  
both waved to Spinner before Jimmy continued."so there isn't going to be any bloodshed tonight  
right?"  
  
"I hope not." Craig walked up to the passenger side of Jimmy's new car."So I know you just got  
your licence and your parents got you this nice car, but you can drive, right?"  
  
"Safest driver in Degrassi." Jimmy boasted as they both climbed in. Loud hip-hop blasted through  
the speakers as Jimmy turned the key in the ignition. "Now lets run over to Paige's and find our  
bassist."   
  
"Just don't kill me."

----------------------------------------------------------  
  
Dylan Michalchuk was starting to grow slightly stir crazy. Paige, Marco, and he were all home  
from school and they all were holed up in separate rooms, pointedly not talking to each other. He  
could guess why Marco was choosing the isolationist route, but Paige's behavior was strange   
to him. Had he missed something at school?  
  
He sighed and stared some more at his ceiling. He was currently laying half sprawled on his bed  
with his left leg and arm dragging on the floor. He collapsed in that position when he forced  
himself upstairs when he had first got home and he hadn't moved since then. His back was starting  
to ache.  
  
Not that he was on his way to being future Canadian Gay-Hockey-star Therapist or anything, but   
he was fairly sure something needed to be done about what he privately called _'The Marco   
Situation'._ The way Marco was closing off was beginning to alarm him.  
  
Well at the moment, he had three choices. One was to go straight to the problem, himself, and  
talk with Marco. The second choice would be to talk things over with Paige and get her  
information. And then there was the ever popular third option and stay in his bed and get a gimpy  
back.   
  
He could see it now; laying in his bed, ruminating over Marco and his parents-from-Vatican-Hell  
would lead him to contract some sort of crazy back-cramp disease from his prone position. Then   
he would never be able to stand up correctly ever again and therefore destroying any chance for  
him to go pro and probably adding even more ammo for the students at Degrassi to make fun of   
him and forever to be remembered as the _Gay-Gimpy Geek_. Well Gay-Gimpy Geek was better  
than _Creepy Cripple_ or _Hobbling Homo_ (well that one had a certain ring to it) maybe even  
_Hunchback Homo-chuk_ and his personal favorite: _Fumbling Fag_.  
  
Dylan groaned as he realized that he was mind rambling. For all of his carefully cultured   
appearance of calm, Grade 12 jock (who happened to like other boys) he really was a big dork on  
the inside. (He had yet to even admit to Paige that he was addicted to Star Trek: Voyager reruns  
that sometimes aired)   
  
So there he was back at his original dilemma. Talk to boyfriend (?), sister, or do nothing.  
  
Well the nothing option was out. His back was starting to hurt pretty badly. Dylan knew he  
needed to move to relieve the pain and by doing that he would crossing out option three.  
  
"Get up, Hobbling Homo and do something." he muttered to himself. The cracks in the ceiling  
were looking pretty nice today. Maybe laying here and getting back cancer wasn't such a bad  
idea.  
  
"You're afraid of a grade 10..." he sing-sang to the silent room. Now along with losing the use of  
his back, he was developing a sudden case of schizophrenia. Talking to one's ceiling was not  
productive.   
  
_Psycho Paraplegic Pouf_. Dylan had to laugh slightly out loud at that one. He really was a Grade  
12 loser.   
  
Moving slightly he grabbed for his remote control. There was always the unexplored Fourth  
option.   
  
Wonder if any Star Trek: Voyager was on.

-------------------------------------------------------  
  
Marco del Rossi, totally unaware that in the next room Dylan Michalchuk was worrying about his  
well being (and the possibility of becoming permanently disabled), was trying to get some  
homework done. He had luckily grabbed all of his school books when he had made his late night  
flee so he could keep up with his charade of normalcy.  
  
Unfortunately Castro's Cuba, Khrushchev's Soviet Union and Kennedy's US was not keeping his  
attention. Sure there was the whole threat of the end of the world and the onset of nuclear winter,  
but his mind kept wandering.  
  
Throwing his book on the floor, Marco gave into temptation and started to pace back and forth.  
All day he had tried to keep his emotions in check; emotions that were threatening come breaking  
through his carefully crafted wall.  
  
Now he let those emotions leak through.  
  
_Why?_  
  
Why did they have to react that way?  
  
Marco flopped back onto the guest bed and rubbed at his eyes. He was dead tired. Maybe if his  
parents hadn't yelled at him for so long then maybe he wouldn't have had to waste half the night  
walking over to the Michalchuk's.   
  
Could it have hurt them, to suspend their rigid Catholic beliefs just for a moment and accept him?  
They aren't back in history like the era that his project was from, things were more accepted now.  
Why couldn't they be like that?  
  
His train of thought was derailed for a moment when the phone rang. He automatically reached  
for it but his hand stalled when he remembered that he wasn't in his own home.   
  
The phone stopped ringing after a few minutes, Paige probably got it or something. Once again,  
that feeling of being one step removed from everything pervaded his mind.  
  
At times it felt like he wasn't living his own life anymore.  
  
He groaned out loud and retrieved his book from where it had fallen. God, he was getting  
depressing.

------------------------------------------------  
  
Paige Michalchuk stared at the phone receiver in shock. After months of waiting, everything she  
ever feared and secretly campaigned for was coming to head.  
  
That had been her attorney. The rape case against Dean was given the go ahead. He had been  
hesitant about taking her case with the obvious lack of physical evidence, but after talking with  
the Degrassi guidance counselor and receiving the notes on the six months of meetings with  
Paige, he had apparently found enough to proceed to trial.  
  
Even if she lost her fragile case, that wasn't the point, she wanted to scare Dean so it never would  
happen again.  
  
But he had warned her that it was going to be a hard road ahead. She was going to have to relive  
everything about that night. Not to mention, she would have to deal with Dean's defense team  
and their efforts to paint her in the negative light.  
  
These were some trials that were ahead of her, he had warned, so she needed to be strong.  
  
In the back of Paige's mind, fear began to grow.

--------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Ellie Nash had been staring at her math supplies for the last ten minutes. Within her mind she had  
been waging an on going battle to retrieve her compass or not. If there had ever been a time to  
cut, this was it.  
  
Yet the voice of Ms. Suave reverberated in her mind reminding her that cutting was not a way to  
deal. The urge and the knowledge warred inside.  
  
Her dad wasn't dead, she had to keep telling herself that. He still was alive and he was going to be  
sent home now. She was sure of it.  
  
She really needed to talk to a friend now. Taking a guess he picked up the phone again and dialed  
a set of unfamiliar numbers.  
  
A sullen voice answered. "_Michalchuk residence_."  
  
Paige. "Hey, this is Ellie. I was wondering if Marco was there." he clearly wasn't at his home  
anymore, so this was a logical place for him to turn to.  
  
"_How did you know he was here_?" Paige sounded confused now, the strange depressed tone  
slipping from her voice. "_I thought he hadn't told anyone yet_."  
  
Ellie raised an eyebrow even though the effect was lost over the phone. "Told anyone what?" now  
she took another stab in the dark. "That his parents kicked him out?"  
  
"_Yeah. He was keeping it quiet for now, at least I thought he was_." Paige let out a long sigh.  
"_Though I'd doubt he'd keep it from his best friend_."  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"_I'll get him for you_." Ellie heard Paige set the phone down and silence took over. So her  
suspicions had been correct; Marco had been tossed out.   
  
A few minutes ticked by until she heard some fumbling and then Marco came on. "_El'_?"  
  
"Marco." was all she got out before the tears finally came. She had been strong for her mother,  
she had held it in while she forcefully turned down the urge to reopen old wounds, but hearing her  
friend's voice allowed it all to break out.  
  
"_El'! What's wrong? What happened? Is it your mom_?" Marco's voice came in a rush over the  
connect. "_Sean? Did he do something? I'll kill him, I swear, I knew he was bad news-_"  
  
"No!" Ellie stemmed Marco's flow of accusations. "No, it's not Sean." she pulled the phone a  
way for a second while she wiped the tears away and blew her nose. "It's my dad."  
  
Marco was quiet for moment. "_What happened El'_?"  
  
"He was hurt."  
  
"_Hurt? How? I thought you told me he had been transferred to Kuwait_."  
  
"I guess he had one more mission and entered Iraq and there his convoy was attacked." Ellie  
sniffed. "He lost a leg, at least that's what my mom told me."  
  
"_Oh God, Ellie, I am so sorry. Is there any news on if he is coming home_?"  
  
Ellie shook her head before she realized that she was on the phone. "Uh, not that I've heard. But I  
think they'll send him home. At least...at least I hope."  
  
"_Don't worry about it El', he'll be home, I know it. Thing's are gonna be okay_."

"Thanks, Marco."

"_No problem_."  
  
"Marco?"  
  
"_Hmm_?"  
  
"What happened with your parents."  
  
There was a silence over the phone.  
  
"_What do you mean_?" Marco's voice took on a dead tone to it, much like the looks and shrugs  
she had been receiving from him all day.  
  
"What I mean is that I didn't know instinctively that you were at Paige's and not at your house. I  
tried there first and I got the 'I have no son' response from your dad. What gives?"  
  
She heard a sharp intake of breath over the line. Maybe that was a little too harsh to repeat but  
she had a feeling that Marco would be stubborn about this touchy subject.  
  
"_What do you think happened, Ellie_?"  
  
"I don't know, tell me."  
  
"_Look, Craig and Jimmy are here. I gotta go now_."  
  
"Marco, tell me. I needed to talk about my dad, you need to talk about this. It must be tearing you  
up inside."  
  
"_What do you know about how it feels_?" he snapped.  
  
"More than you'd think!" she snapped equally back at him. She knew what kind of mood this  
was, it was like the time after he had been bashed. He was escaping into himself and not allowing  
anyone in.  
  
When had this conversation worked its way around to her helping him?  
  
"_Ellie, drop it. I'm going now. We're going to have band practice. Ciao_." she heard the dial tone  
in her ear as he hung up.  
  
He just escaped from her.


	5. Breathe

**AN:** Once again I really appreciate all the reviews! They really keep me going! Oh I did want to point out the timeline of this fic. It started after 'Our House' yet before the 'Power of Love' so I figure it deviated sometime before their exams and the end of the year.

Oh and the 'poem' that Marco 'writes' is Hoobastank's song '_Up and Gone'_ It is off of their earlier album but it fit perfectly.

And yeah I know it seems like it is still moving slowly but the 'real. lifel. now.' slogan isn't always correct.

**Disclaimers: **I don't own Degrassi: TNG or Hoobastank. And '_Reading Lolita in Tehran'_ is a real book.

* * *

**Part 5: **_Breathe_

* * *

  
  
_I need to think, I need to feed, I need to see if I still bleed,  
I need a place, I need a time, 'cause I need to step outside the line,  
Gonna give, gonna take, I'm gonna scream 'til I am awake,  
I'm gonna push, I'm gonna pull, open up the door...  
- "Just One"_

-------------------------------------------------  
  
"So let me get this straight. The dude who rules Russia gets it into his head to put bombs in Cuba  
to blow up the dude who rules America?" Spinner Mason chewed on the end of his pencil as he  
stared at the open history book.  
  
"It is the Soviet Union, back then Spin." Marco del Rossi idly commented as he flipped through  
his own history book.  
  
Spinner groaned and threw his hands up in surrender. "I don't get it man! How can these Russians  
be the good guys during one war, then they become the bad guys after the war, then back to good  
again for the next war only to turn into the bad guys again after that?"  
  
Marco looked up and met Spinner's confused eyes. "Maybe they are just temperamental?"  
  
Spinner laughed before returning back to his book. They had been spending all of their fourth  
period study hall on their history projects; most of them were utilizing this time to work on them.  
  
"Soooo is there any movie we can watch instead of all this reading?" Spinner asked as he shot a  
glare at the text. "Though I can't see how any movie about all this talking would be interesting."  
  
Marco looked up again, "Actually there is a movie about the missile crisis. It is called _Thirteen  
Days_. But yeah, I heard that it is boring."  
  
Maybe it was the subject, or maybe it was the stifling heat that the library managed to maintain,  
but Spinner's attention soon began to wander. He laid his head down on the books that he and  
Marco had gathered for their projects. He was tired, what with the work he pulled for the Dot  
yesterday then the band practice; Craig was becoming a regular Canadian Hitler with the single  
deal that they had won. His break-neck practicing rate had the entire group exhausted in just  
under an hour, not to mention his anxiety of having Ashley over that night was just making him  
short of murderous when ever someone screwed up a note. Then add Marco's strange  
detachment. He'd space off and miss his cue which would just give Craig another reason to  
launch into a tirade about how much they suck.  
  
Spinner didn't bother to hide his yawn.  
  
"Look, I know this isn't very interesting but can at least pretend to help me look for the so-called  
reasons for this?" Marco asked as he grabbed for his pen to mark some notes down.  
  
"Do we have practice today?"  
  
"'He says switching the subject.'" Marco added in an aside.  
  
Spinner raised his eyebrow, "Y'know both you and Dylan do that."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"The little commentaries. He does it to Paige all the time and it drives her nuts."  
  
"Hmm," Marco still seemed disinterested and he wrote some information down, "guess I must of  
picked it up from him."  
  
A sly look crossed Spinner's face as he leaned on his elbows over the table to stare at Marco.  
"So, did Mason's Matchmaker of Lurve work out for del Rossi and Michalchuk?"  
  
Marco finally looked up at him. "That sounds slightly disturbing seeing as how you're dating a  
Michalchuk."  
  
Spinner looked thoughtful. "Hm, I guess if things go well, we'd be in-laws or something like  
that."  
  
"That is also a disturbing thought."  
  
"I can see it now, you and Paige making us dinner while Dylan and I drink beer and belch on the  
couch."  
  
"Why would we be making the dinner? Listen Reject-from-the-50s, in my vison, you and Dylan  
are making the dinner while Paige and I uh sit around watching TV or something."  
  
He raised his finger in triumph, "So you are having visions with Dylan! Mason the Matchmaker  
strikes again!"  
  
Marco rolled his eyes and rubbed his temples. "Why are we having this conversation? And who  
else have you set up?"  
  
"Uh, no one else, come to think of it."  
  
"Thought so." the bell rang, signaling the end to study hall. "Listen, help me gather all these  
books and take them to my locker. We'll need them later." Marco stood and scooped up several  
books while Spinner followed his lead and they both headed out.  
  
They reached Marco's locker and Marco handed off his books to Spinner so he could undo the  
combination.  
  
"You never did answer my question." Spinner pointed out around the stack of books in his arms.  
  
"What question? Practice? Yeah Craig said there was gonna be one after school today."  
  
Spinner sighed. "No, the one about Dylan."  
  
Before Marco could answer Sean Cameron, Jay Hobert, and the rest of their 'crew' walked by.  
  
Jay caught sight of Spinner and Marco and from underneath his off kilter hat and shades, a sneer  
appeared. "Boyfriend dump you Marco?" he asked.  
  
Spinner watched Marco roll his eyes and begin shoving the history books into his locker. But Jay  
wasn't finished with him yet. "Y'know, I thought you were with Paige, Mason, seems like you've  
turned fag now too." Jay drew himself closer to Spinner and made a small kiss-kiss face. "Homo-  
chuk must be turning even more of the students fag."  
  
Marco tensed and practically threw a book into the locker. "Listen Jay," he started, turning  
around, " why don't you just leave." he shot a pointed glare to Sean's direction who was  
decidedly not watching the confrontation.  
  
Jay turned from Spinner to Marco in a flash. "You have a problem, you little queer?"  
  
Spinner knew that he should do something but to everyone's surprise Marco responded. He  
slammed his locker shut threw his left arm out to where it caught Jay off guard in the chest. Jay  
stumbled a few steps backwards into Sean.  
  
"Look, I'm tired you and your goddamned fag comments!" Marco exploded. Everyone stared at  
him in shock. Even he looked a little surprised at his own gall. "Just get over yourself." he  
muttered in Jay's direction before storming off towards his next class, with Spinner, silently  
congratulating him, in tow.  
  
----------------------------------------------

"And then he totally freaked on Jay." Sean Cameron elaborated to his girlfriend Ellie Nash as they  
sat on the steps to the main entrance to Degrassi. They both had their lunches spread on their laps  
as they enjoyed the brief sun.  
  
"Good for Marco." Ellie nodded. "It's about time he started standing up for himself."  
  
"Yeah, but he just made himself an enemy in Jay." Sean pointed out, taking a bite of his sandwich.  
  
" He really should have just stayed quiet."  
  
"And let Jay walk all over him?" Ellie paused in her food to stare at Sean in disbelief. "He already  
got beaten up for being gay outside of school, he doesn't need it from within."  
  
"Then he shouldn't be so obvious about it." Sean muttered under his breath.  
  
Ellie couldn't believe her ears. "Obvious? Marco goes through great lengths to hide it. If he had it  
his way, he'd still be in the closet."  
  
"All I am saying his that he acts gay. He's all into this gay 'Bollywood', way too concerned with  
fashion, hell he even looks girly." Sean shuddered. "I mean, he even checks out other guys at  
school. He's checked me out before."  
  
"And you never look at any other girls?" Ellie rolled her eyes.  
  
"I don't want to get into this fight with you."  
  
"Then try and be a little more open with Marco. He is my best friend."  
  
Sean sighed. "Alright. Enough about Marco. How are you doing? You seemed distant this  
morning."  
  
Ellie looked away and remained silent. She had avoided everyone, including Marco, this morning  
(though the latter because she wasn't exactly sure if they were on speaking terms or not) and  
when she did speak to people, her responses had been quiet and spacey.  
  
"Things aren't that great, right now." she conceded. Sean didn't need to know that her father was  
hospitalized in some shit-splat hospital in Iraq, with only one leg, or that her mom was in a  
constant state of passed out on the couch with tears still drying on her face. Some things just  
needed to be kept to one's self.  
  
In a moment of clarity, she realized that was the same reasoning that Marco must be using about  
his parents.  
  
Sean eyed her levelly from underneath his knit hat. "Y'sure?" he asked quietly.  
  
"I'm positive." she gave him a smile in consolation. Sean seemed to understand her unwillingness  
to share everything at the moment and for that she was grateful.  
  
------------------------------------------

Craig Manning and Ashley Kerwin were sitting at the same lunch table. That fact alone was earth  
shattering and managed to monopolize the thoughts of everyone during the lunch period.  
  
All around him, Craig's friends (Ashley's too now that he thought about it) were having a much  
more subdued lunch conversation. No one was mentioning their bands (which now that he  
thought about that, they were all in rival bands), love, Manny, coupling, sex (which with Spinner  
at the table was an amazing feat unto itself), Manny, babies (not that they ever really talked about  
babies at lunch anyway), monogamy, oh, and Manny.  
  
In fact they were discussing cheese. Craig made a mental note to himself that all of his friends  
were psychos.  
  
"Spin! How can you possibly eat all that processed cheese?" Paige Michalchuk squealed as said  
Spinner Mason scooped up a nacho chip which was in fact soaked in processed cheese and  
popped it into his mouth. "I do not understand how you can digest that."  
  
"Yeah," Paige's friend Hazel Aden chimed in. "It's like 80% not real cheese."  
  
"Is there anything in the caf' that isn't 80% not real food?" Ashley seriously asked, staring at her  
food in a suspicious way.  
  
"I think the juice is real." Craig ventured, looking down at his meager juice box.  
  
"5% real fruit juice." Marco del Rossi read off of his own juice. "That even less real than the  
cheese."  
  
"Are nachos even really Mexican?" Hazel asked. "And why are we having this 'Around the  
World' theme for our food anyway."  
  
"I think they are Mexican. Though I don't understand why we just didn't have tacos for Mexican  
day." Jimmy Brooks commented.  
  
"They are going for different and not stereotypical." Ashley pointed out, not without some  
sarcasm.  
  
"Yet on Italian Day we had pizza." Marco dead-panned.  
  
"Spaghetti was overrated."  
  
Marco shoved his tray away and opted for his apple. (Hah, apples weren't Mexican!) "What I  
would give for some real Italian food right now. Even for something as 'stereotypical' as pasta."  
  
"Ah, man, you can just go home and get the real thing." Jimmy pointed out as he bravely tried the  
beans that went with the chips. "Your family is like Chef Boyardee only without the can."  
  
"Was he Italian?" Spinner asked.  
  
Craig had been about to actually eat some of his food but at that moment he caught the flinch that  
passed over Marco.  
  
"Sorry, hon, but I don't think my mom can cook real authentic Italian food. The best she can do is  
pulling out her credit card and paying for a meal at the Olive Garden." Paige smiled at Marco.  
"Though she can cook some killer Ukranian food."  
  
"Where is Ukraine, anyways?" Spinner piped up.  
  
"Some where in Eastern Europe, haven't you ever played Risk, Spin?" Jimmy asked.  
  
"Oh yeah..."  
  
Craig was caught on something that was passed over in the conversation. Marco had flinched at  
the mention of his home. Then Paige responded about how her mom couldn't cook it. Craig  
shook his head as the implications of that equation seemed too large to be true. Besides Marco  
wasn't acting any different.  
  
Wasn't he?

----------------------------------

Emma Nelson didn't care if she sat alone for lunch or with a crowd of people. Her sack lunch was  
off to the side of her as a book was open in front.  
  
She was busy reading when JT Yorke and Toby Isaacs situated themselves at the same table.  
  
"Hey Em'." Toby greeted before diving into his tray of food.  
  
She nodded in response but didn't really look up.  
  
"So I heard that you pissed off Manny again." JT paused looking at his own food with a raised  
eyebrow. "What are you reading?"  
  
"_'Reading Lolita in Tehran'_." Emma answered his second comment.  
  
"Looks and sounds exciting." JT muttered sarcastically. "Now why did you piss off Manny?"  
  
"I didn't."  
  
"Not what I heard."  
  
Emma set her book down and looked up at JT. Toby was pretending to be interested in his food;  
he had sensed the rising irritation in Emma. "JT, I did a book report. Manny misinterpreted it like  
she does with everything."  
  
JT actually looked slightly angry, maybe he truly did care for Manny the girl and not Manny the  
body.  
  
"Look, JT, don't you get mad either, I just did a dumb book report. It's like in Shakespeare. 'I  
will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.'"  
  
JT rolled his eyes. "Did you just actually quote Shakespeare? And what does that even mean?"  
  
"Yes, and it means that it was up to her to take my actions as an insult or not. It wasn't intended  
but that's what she heard."  
  
Toby looked at her sadly. "Are you two ever going to be friends again?"  
  
Emma returned to her book. "I don't know."

----------------------------------

Paige Michalchuk was praying that Ms. Kwan didn't call on her to read from her creative journal  
today. She had broken down and written all about her feelings about the trial and those weren't  
feelings she wanted to share with the rest of the class.  
  
Once again Ashley Kerwin was up in the front reading one of her latest songs; she personally  
thought that they were too dark for her but this new poem of Ashley's was lighter and happier  
than her usual.  
  
Wonder if things were really improving between her and Craig.  
  
"Thank you Ashley." Ms. Kwan smiled at her best student before turning to the class. "What did  
everyone think?"  
  
Craig Manning raised his hand first which earned a surprised look from Ashley. "I think Ash is  
getting a better grip on word usage. Earlier poems used simple words that rhymed with simple  
words. Now they are all more complex and emotional."  
  
There were nods from around the room and Ms. Kwan seemed to agree. "That's exactly what  
I've been thinking. Your talent as a writer continues to grow, Ashley."  
  
Ashley returned to her desk but not before resting a hand on Craig's shoulder as she passed him.  
  
Paige raised an eyebrow at the contact. Whatever happened last night must have put the two  
former mortal enemies on peaceable terms.  
  
Ms. Kwan clapped her hands together and surveyed the class. Paige tried to sink into her desk so  
that she wouldn't be seen from behind Jimmy Brooks. Luck was on her side today as Kwan  
zeroed in on the other person whose personal feelings need not be aired to Grade 10 English:  
Marco del Rossi.  
  
"Marco? Could you share your entry? I haven't heard from you in awhile."  
  
While Paige was glad that her and her memories of the night from hell were spared, she felt bad  
for the other kid. He had been going through his own hell lately.  
  
Marco slowly stood and made his way to the front of the room. He passed Ellie Nash, who gave  
Marco an unreadable look. Paige had inadvertently caught Marco's end of their conversation last  
afternoon and she knew that the two friends were in the middle of a fight. But from the look that  
Ellie was sending her friend, all the ill feelings were from Marco.  
  
He stood and opened his journal. Their assignment had to be in poem form and Paige knew that  
Marco was a good writer of plays but she had never heard a poem from him, in a way this would  
interesting.  
  
"Staring at the white above,  
can't tell if I'm alive or am I dead.  
Or is it in my head?  
Where'd I go wrong?  
  
"Staring at the white above,  
one day I closed my eyes  
and here I am,  
a cold unhappy man.  
I've come to realize the life I have  
I hate, the pulse I need is slowly fading  
until I've lost it all.  
I've been waiting for an inspiration,  
for a chance I never got to take  
before it's much too late  
Where'd I go wrong?"  
  
Marco swallowed and looked up at the class who all were staring at him attentively. He blinked  
rapidly before looking back down to continue.  
  
"Where's the boy that used to run?  
could it be he's up and gone away?  
He seems so far away,  
and all the things I could have done  
could it be they've up and gone away?  
They seem so far away.  
  
"It feels as if the boy in me,  
has left and been replaced with a cheap and bitter  
imposter of myself,  
I must find the one that used to be,  
approach him slow, don't be afraid to say  
'can he come out and play?'"  
  
Paige felt a lump forming in the back of her throat. Suddenly she was close to tears and she didn't  
quite know why.  
  
"Where's the boy that used to run?  
could it be he's up and gone away?  
He seems so far away,  
and all the things I could have done  
could it be they've up and gone away?  
They seem so far away."  
  
Marco closed his journal and looked up and met the quiet eyes of the English class and finished  
with the question: "Where did I go wrong?"


	6. Impressions

**AN:** Thatn you all for the nice reviews! Hey, I forgot to mention that I was going on a week vaction but I return with a loooong part. Usually my chapters are about 6 pages on Word and this one is 13 pages. And not to mention, I think that this part fits the opening lyrics the best. Not to mention that this brings up more about the trial and stuff.

Oh, and it bugs me how when Marco was written 'gay' on the show, he lost his knowledge of sports. It was made like he only got the Leafs shirt to impress Dylan, yet he won tickets to them in "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". Meh, it has always bothered me.

And this part is the calm before the storm. Part 7 has always been the 'shit hits the fan' chapter. :P And a hint for the next part: _A character will break a promise that is made in this chapter_

**Disclaimers: **I don't own Degrassi: TNG and I don't really hate lawyers.

* * *

**Part 6: **Impressions

* * *

_I knew how it felt to be another one in need  
Of someone to show the way,  
Until you saw a part of me, that nobody else could see  
And my life hasn't been the same  
- "Lucky"_

* * *

"Yeah, I'm Dylan Michalchuk." Dylan stared at the dapperly dressed man standing on hisdoorstep. 

Armed with a dark briefcase and an extended tape recorder, the man threw Dylan for a loop. Wasit some scout for hockey? A social worker for Marco? Some reporter? A guy about to announce that he had won a million dollars and there was some camera crew hidden behind his mother's rhododendrons?

"I am sure you are aware of the charges that your sister has placed on my client. I just need to ask you a few questions." he moved into Dylan's personal space, clearly wanting to be let inside the house. But he didn't budge from the door frame.

"Yeah, I know Paige has filed the rape charge. What does it have to do with me?" Dylan arched an eyebrow at the man, who had revealed himself to be this Dean guy's lawyer. He had instantly felt his body go cold at the mention of the events that had occurred last year to his sister. It wasn't something he liked to discuss, at least without hitting something.

"Well, as you know, the defense is entitled to a meeting with any witnesses that the prosecution  
plans on calling." the man moved even closer to where Dylan stood, barring the entryway.

"Actually, I didn't know that." Dylan dead panned, not bothering to hide his dislike. "I didn't even  
know that I was going to be a witness to this trial."

The man looked slightly smug at that admission. "Of course you are going to be called to testify. You're a character witness."

Dylan still didn't relent any space to the lawyer. "Are you suppose to be telling me this?"

Idly, Dylan noticed that the tape recorder had been recording the entire exchange. But the man didn't look perturbed by his rudeness, nor did Dylan really care that he was being rude. Any guy who was going to be defending that Bardell slime was worth a less than kind attitude.

"I'm just helping you understand. Now may we head inside so we can commence with questions?" The idiot moved even closer to Dylan. Now the dumb little tape recorder was pressing up against Dylan's chest.

"Fine." Dylan ground out and stepped aside so the other could enter. He shut the door and grumbled several choice phrases about the man in front of him. He experienced the strange sensation of following a complete stranger throughout his own house. It was such a mind tilting feeling.

The man, whom's name he had never caught, headed straight to the dinning room where the large oak table waited for them. Reaching a chair, the man sat down without so much an invitation from Dylan and proceeded to remove papers from his brief case and prop up his recorder.

Dylan slowly sank into the chair that was the farthest away from the annoying man. "So, there is one thing I want to know."

The man looked up from his business as if surprised that Dylan had the gall to ask him a question.

"And that is?"

Dylan leaned forward on his elbows to raise an eyebrow at the guy. "I'm still in high school, shouldn't a parent be present when you question me?"

The man had enough sense to look sheepish. "Uh," he stumbled. "Yeah, I've already talked to your father, he is on his way here right now. So we'll wait until he gets here."

Dylan fell back against his chair, not bothering to hide the smug look spreading across his face. "But you were just about to start anyway, without my dad being here." he pointed out with an air of triumph.

There was silence as Dylan gloated at the failed attempt to coerce him. Unfortunately the lawyer had been telling the truth when he had said that he called Mr. Michalchuk because not much longer than ten minutes of the stretching silence, the sound of the door opening was heard, followed by Mr. Michalchuk's voice.

"Dylan?"

"In the dining room , dad." Dylan raised his voice so it would carry. Mr. Michalchuk appeared in the archway to the dinning room, looking infinitely more warm in his suit than the creep that was sitting across from him.

"What's going on in here?" his father had the polite sense of puzzlement as he took in the lawyer sitting across from his oldest child. "Don't tell me you started without me?" his voice turned a little bit colder at the last question.

The still-nameless man was quick to respond in the negative. "Oh no, no sir. We were waiting for you."

Dylan watch his dad's eyebrow do that same twitch that Paige's eyebrow would do when she was really annoyed but didn't want to really show it. "Well lets get started, I don't want to make Dylan late for his evening hockey practice."

The lawyer nodded. "First question, Dylan. When did you learn about Ms. Michalchuk's alleged rape?"

Dylan tensed up at the guy's dismissive tone about his sister's rape. Of course he was going to say things like that, he reminded himself, he was defending the creep. "I heard about her _rape_," he put emphasis on the word rape with a little more anger than he intended. "about the same time, my parents did. It was right after she went to her first meeting with the school counselor."

"So she went to a stranger before her parents or brother?"

"She actually to her best friend first, then her friends encouraged her to talk to a professional. Ms. Suave then guided her to tell us."

"Would you say that Ms. Michalchuk is popular at school?"

Dylan rolled his eyes at the inane question. "I guess so, I mean sure. But it isn't like I hang out with her, she's a Grade 10 and I'm a Grade 12."

"So you guys aren't that close?"

"I wouldn't say that, I mean I still pull her hair and she still hides my hockey gear whenever we get mad at each other but that is normal sibling stuff. But we do know what is going on in each other's lives. I know her secrets and she knows mine."

"But you didn't know that she had been 'raped'?" the guy made a note on a legal pad, which didn't make much sense because he had that dumb recorder going.

"No she kept that one to herself. I have some stuff I haven't told her either." Dylan hoped that recorder didn't pick up the grinding of his teeth.

"Did you have any association with my client?"

"I knew of him from the rivalry between Degrassi and Bardell. Before I went to the Junior A Raiders, I played for Degrassi and he was on Bardell's team. So I played against him."

"You didn't like him?"

"I didn't give Dean a second thought before he raped my sister, but after? Yeah I think it is safe to say I don't like the bastard."

Dylan winced as his father shot him a look. It was getting kind of awkward answering these question with his dad sitting right next to him.

But the lawyer continued on.

If he had thought it was awkward before, he was floored by the next question.

"Is it true, that you are a homosexual?" the man's flippant tone did nothing to guise the shocking question.

"Wh-what?" Dylan stammered in surprise.

Mr. Michalchuk intervened then. "I don't think that has anything to do with my daughter's case."

"On the contrary. Your son's testimony is giving Ms. Michalchuk's background. Your son's sexuality, open sexuality I might add, affects your daughter's."

"What?" Dylan was still reeling.

"Answer the question." the lawyer tapped his pen against the legal pad.

_Bastard._ "Yeah. I'm gay."

The lawyer was merciless, "And do you have a partner?"

"'Partner'? You mean a boyfriend?" Dylan normally had a long fuse to get angry. But the appearance of this jerk and his offhanded way of handling Paige's trauma had set him on edge and now this, Dylan was definitely angry now.

"If you will." he motioned for Dylan to answer.

"Yeah, I do." sorta, he added in his head. Dylan tried to ignore the mildly surprised look that the answer earned from his father.

"Name please."

Dylan had enough. He stood and shoved his chair back. "I am not answering that!" he looked at his dad and pointed at the lawyer. "This is going too far! This isn't about me or Marco! This is about Paige and that _fuck-tard_ that calls himself a man!"

His father raised his hands in a placating manner. "Dyl' please calm down."

The lawyer pounced on the name that Dylan had accidently dropped. "Marco?" he checked his notes that had appeared out of the brief case. "As in Marco del Rossi? One of Ms. Michalchuk's friends?"

Dylan turned and practically growled at the idiot. "Yeah." he spat. "But if you go near him I'll-" his threat was cut off as his father roughly pulled him down by his shoulder.

"Dylan, enough!" he ordered. To the lawyer, "Sir, I apologize, but this meeting is over."

The creep smiled insincerely at Dylan and calmly clicked off the tape recorder. "Yes, Mr. Michalchuk, Dylan, I too, believe that this interview is over."

* * *

Craig Manning sometimes couldn't believe that this was the same band (consisting of one Spinner Mason, one Jimmy Brooks, and one Marco del Rossi) that won the TO Sounds contest. 

As he stood with his guitar slung around backwards on his should, he watched the other three practice the new cords for their new song. And practice was a liberal term.

Spinner was whacking away on the drums like if he hit the snare harder, then the beat would come out better. Jimmy was busy trying to make the smooth alternate rock chords on his own guitar turn out as hip hop as possible. While Marco was hunched over his bass on the ratty couch arm, not so much playing as idly plucking one note every five minutes or so, while staring off into the distance.

Of course Spinner and Jimmy's actions had reasons. Both of their respective girlfriends were sitting on the same couch that Marco occupied, supposedly listening to this crap that they were trying to pass off as music. So of course with females in the vicinity of them, Spinner and Jimmy went into super macho mode which, frankly, was annoying as hell.

"Guys!" he tried to get their attention. Spinner went on 'drumming', Jimmy went on rapping, Marco was spacing, and Paige and Hazel were discussing nail polish. This sucked. "Guys!!"

He got Jimmy's attention. "Dude?"

Craig let out a fairly loud growl. That got the rest of theirs. "This is not working!"

Spinner twirled a drumstick around in his hand and grinned his infamous lopsided grin, "What's not working, dude?"

"This!" Craig gestured. "No one has their mind on the song! We're going to be the only band that heads to a recording booth and not have anything to record!"

Marco sighed and leaned over his bass. "Look, Craig, why don't we just sing the song we won with? It is kind of expected."

Trust Marco to be damned logical. Craig set his guitar down and slumped down onto the concrete. "Look, I just can't sing that song again. It's like, too emotional, too raw or something."

"How sweet." Paige cut in, her voice softened. "But I understand."

Craig looked up. "You do?"

Paige stopped looking at her nails long enough to look up. "Like, yeah. Last year, Ash wrote a song, that I ended up preforming in a competition. We didn't win, but I don't think I can ever sing it again."

Craig looked at her thoughtfully as she exchanged a meaningful look with Hazel. Like how Marco had never truly came out to him, Paige had never truly told him what had happened to her last year. Spinner knew. Hazel knew. Ashley knew. But they had never told him. He had just gathered that it was pretty bad.

"Emotions make great songs, dude, but we need a song you can continue to sing over and over." Jimmy pointed out.

"I know, I know. And believe me, I am writing a good song."

"You just can't share it now, huh?" Spinner rolled his eyes. "Which probably means that you don't have any lyrics"

Craig groped for the nearest throwable object, which happened to be a basketball that Jimmy had brought over with him, and he heaved it at Spinner. Spinner, who was used to his object-throwing rage, ducked with precision only to emerge back up from behind the drum set laughing.

"Dude, you have the worst aim."

"Why don't you use the poem Marco wrote." Hazel tentatively asked.

Marco tensed over his bass and shot Hazel a slightly scared look. "Uh, my poem?"

She nodded, "Yeah the one you read in Kwan. It was really good. Emotional too."

Craig had to nod at her point. He had been really surprised that Marco had written such a good piece. Sure, he knew that he wrote plays and that sort of stuff, but Marco had always let Craig do the lyric thing.

But Marco was busy shaking his head. "No. Nu-uh. I am not letting any of you ever hear that again. I just should have told Ms. Kwan no."

Jimmy pressed on, getting into it. "C'mon, man, it was gold. We should try it."

Paige jumped in to defend Marco. "Hon, I don't think Marco's feelings needed to be exploited for TO."

Craig sighed and slumped back against the wall. "Fine, fine." he mumbled under his breath. "I guess I should write lyrics then, huh?"

"CRAIG!" everyone cried out.

"I thought you said you had some lyrics, dude!" Spinner cried out, launching a drumstick at Craig's head, which nearly hit him.

"I have some!" Craig tried to defend himself. "Okay, one line."

His band all looked slightly disgusted with him.

But before they could voice their disgust, a loud banging shook the door to the garage. Craig looked at the door in confusion. Everyone who ever came over, including Joey, would just walk in, so who was knocking?

Getting up, Craig opened the door.

* * *

Paige Michalchuk had been avoiding going home that afternoon. Going home meant facing her parents and her brother, and their worries about the impending trial and preparations. 

So she followed her boyfriend to his band practice.

But her family had a way of stalking her.

Craig Manning opened the garage door to reveal her brother Dylan Michalchuk, looking very enraged. She hadn't seen him look so angry since she told him what had really happened the night she went to the party for Dean.

"Dylan?" she heard her surprised echoed in Marco del Rossi's voice. She didn't even realized he knew where Craig lived.

Dylan nodded to Craig and slightly pushed passed him, to meet Paige. Shooting an apologetic look at Marco and the rest of the band (plus Hazel) he pulled Paige aside to the corner and bent down to her level.

"I just got visited by none other than that bastard from Bardell's lawyer." Paige couldn't help but notice how angry her brother really was when he whispered those words. His hand was tight against her upper arm, his eyes were glowing (in a creepy alien-cat sorta way like that scary B-movie that Spinner made her watch), and there was a vein showing on his forehead.

Anger was not the best emotion for her brother.

But shock first.

"What? What did he want? Was he looking for me?" questions were running through her mind; she had set out to ignore this trial and it ended up following her brother.

"Actually, he wanted to talk to me." Dylan broke eye contact and glared a some spot above her head. "Yeah, he wanted to know if you told me about what had happened, how close we were, oh and if I was, in fact, gay and dating one of your friends."

"What?" she accidently exclaimed louder than she had intended. Throwing a quick glance at the rest of her friends, who were all pointedly ignoring the conversing siblings, she turned back to Dylan. "But why? What does that have to do with what is going on?"

Dylan slammed his other hand against the wall in a burst of frustration. "I don't really know. It is some ploy. I know it. They're going to use my sexuality against you, Paige, but I don't know how yet."

"How can that even work? It wasn't like Dean raped me," she took in a deep shuddering breath at that statement and noticed that Dylan tensed up at those words too, "it wasn't like he raped me because _you're_ gay."

Dylan sighed and threw an unreadable look over at where Marco sat with his bass. "I know that. But, lawyers? They'd use information like that against you, even if it really has nothing to do with you." he gave that strange look again the direction of Marco. "And I think they are going to go after Marco too."

"Marco? Why him? I never told him!" it was true that the only people that she had told were Hazel, Ashley, Spinner (though it was Hazel that told him first), and JT. The others knew that something bad had happened, many putting two and two together, but never hearing it from her own mouth; Marco was one of those.

"It was a mistake, but I accidently said his name when the jerk was questioning me. He has like a list of your friends or something so he knew I was talking about a certain Del Rossi."

She was slightly confused. "How did he even come up in the conversation?"

"He asked if I had a boyfriend."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Something clicked. "Wait, if they talked to you, and probably will talk to Marco, then do you think that the will be talking with Spinner?"

Dylan paused to consider it. "I would think so. He is your boyfriend. I wouldn't be surprised if they would want to talk to Hazel or Ashley either. Anything to dig up dirt on you."

Paige groaned and rubbed at her eyes. "My lawyer said that it was going to be tough, but I don't think I want to deal with this anymore."

Dylan looked at her sadly, his earlier anger seemed to have dissipated. "I know. But things are going to work out and you'll get that bastard."

She nodded and they turned back to the rest of the group. "Sorry," she forced herself to smile to her friends, "Dylan had some news to tell me."

Craig nodded, "No problem. If you wanted to stay and listen to us play...then I'd have to warn you that you'd be sadly disappointed."

"Or you can give us more tickets to another hockey game." Jimmy grinned, showing that he was only kidding around. "Maybe we can finally get Marco to understand hockey."

Marco rolled his eyes and set his bass down on the ground. "Contrary to popular belief, I do know hockey."

Spinner didn't bother to hide his scoff.

"Remember, Grade 9, I kicked your asses in the break dancing competition, Vanilla Ice, Michael Jackson?" Marco stood up and crossed his arms. "I happened to win Leafs tickets remember?" he paused to roll his eyes again in disgust. "I'm not a _complete_ girl."

"Dude, never said you were." Jimmy raised an eyebrow and Marco sudden abruptness.

Paige returned to her seat and watched Marco gather his school bags. Ever since he had turned up on their doorstep, he had been swinging between dark and darker moods. It was unnerving from someone who was usually so upbeat. But from experience, she knew that some things can totally change your outlook on life. For better or for worse.

Dylan stopped Marco's attempt to storm out. "Marco?" he asked softly.

"What?" Paige was surprised to hear the slightly childish sullen tone from Marco.

"What is wrong? They were just kidding around." Dylan gestured to Spinner and Jimmy who were looking at the two in pure confusion.

"What do you think?" he answered her brother's question with another question.

"You need to talk to someone about it, then!" Dylan still managed to bar Marco from exiting the garage. "You can't keep it all in; it is going to destroy you!"

Paige caught the exchanged looks that Craig, Spinner, Jimmy, and Hazel shared. Only Dylan, herself, her parents, and Ellie knew about Marco and his parents; she knew that there were going to be plenty of questions after all this. About Marco and her.

"What do you care?" Marco snapped, still trying to shove his way pass Dylan.

But Paige knew from growing up with him, that when Dylan wouldn't let you pass, you weren't going to be able to pass. He was a hockey player after all.

"Because you're my _boyfriend_, why else would you think I'd care?!" Dylan exploded. Paige froze as that information was revealed and judging by the looks on everyone's faces, they didn't know that bit about their friend.

Well, she didn't know they were either.

Now that she looked, Marco didn't look like he knew either.

Dylan continued on, "You, me. Talk._ Now_." with that he pulled Marco out of the garage.

With that sudden exit, the group stared at each other in shock.

Craig recovered first. "Uh. Didn't know they were actually together."

"I knew they went on a date, but..." Jimmy trailed off. He blinked and turned to Paige. "What's been going on?"

Paige sighed and shook her head. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"Why not?" Hazel asked.

"It's complicated." she looked over at Spinner and gave him _the Look_. She wanted to talk to him, to warn him about Dean's lawyer. Luckily, Spinner had been practicing on reading her many _Looks_. He got the meaning right away.

"Listen, guys, why don't we just end this practice. We lost our bassist and we don't even have lyrics." that last jab earned a glare from Craig as Spinner stood up from behind his drum set.

Everyone nodded and began to gather their stuff. Spinner moved to Paige's side and rest a hand on her elbow. "What's up?"

Paige shook her head, "Not here, outside." Spinner nodded and they both said their goodbyes to their friends and stepped outside. Still parked in front of Joey's house, was Dylan's car which meant that he and Marco were still talking. So they decided just to walk in the general direction of the Michalchuk house so not to run in on her brother's personal talk.

"Spin, you know what happened with me and Dean?"

Spinner's voice was hard. "Yeah.

"Yesterday, I got the word that my case going to trial." she looked at him through the corner of her eye. He was looking at the ground as they walked, with his hands in his pockets and the drumsticks sticking out his back ones.

"Really?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that was why Dylan came over. He had just been questioned by Dean's lawyer and he was worried about me."

"Why was Dylan questioned?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know really, but I think that they want to dig up bad stuff on me." she stopped walking and turned to Spinner. "Which is why I am worried about you."

Spinner raised an eyebrow and clicked his tongue ring. "Why me?"

"Because I think they are going to try and talk with you, get you to say stuff about me."

He shook his head and let out a light laugh. "No way. I wouldn't say anything bad about you."

"They can use anything against me." she moaned. "They got Dylan to admit that he was gay. I think they are going to use that against me!"

"I don't understand that." Spinner mumbled. But he shrugged it off and gathered her into his arms. "But don't worry. Nothing bad is going to happen. I'm here."

That was _exactly_ what she wanted to hear.

* * *

Marco del Rossi was both violently pissed and floored by the 12th grader in front of him. Dylan Michalchuk had grabbed a hold of his wrist and dragged him around the back of Craig's garage into the slightly wooded area where he had once counseled Craig about the latter's writer's block. 

He was pissed because Dylan wouldn't let him run away after his friend's teasing and his subsequent outburst.

And he was floored because in one comment, Dylan had cleared up all of his questions about what their relationship really was.

But he was still pretty pissed off.

"What the _hell_?" he turned on Dylan when they were well away from the garage.

"Look! Things are a little stressed right now, and they don't need your PMS!" Dylan snapped right back. "Plus I know that you have not yet even begun to deal with what went down with your parents and I know that you need to talk about it!"

"Oh and you are just the god damned expert aren't you, Michalchuk? You tell your parents that you're gay and they accept you with open arms." Marco pulled his hand out of Dylan's grasp.

It looked like the anger that Dylan had stormed in with was returning. "You weren't there when it did go down. They freaked. They're cool now, because they've had years to deal. Yours have had three days. Not to mention the religious background they have. Yes, the situations are different, but it was hard for me, because I was so close to my father before and when I had to tell him the truth, all those years that we had were gone in the instant that I said two words: _'I'm_ _gay'_" Dylan shook his head, "Things are only now just getting better."

Marco felt his anger leak away. He sighed, Dylan was right, they were two completely different people with completely different families. The Michalchuks were more open, liberal, and didn't base their thoughts on religion. His parents had grown up in Italy, in the heart of the Roman Catholic religion; their way was either conformed to or dropped. He had been dropped.

Maybe living in Canada had loosened them up a bit, so after cooling down period, they'd take him back, but that was a distant hope. One he didn't want to dwell on.

He felt Dylan pull him into a tight embrace and Marco buried his head into the folds of Dylan's windbreaker. When had he started crying? Suddenly it felt like all the feelings of hurt, anger, sadness, and depression hit at once and all he could do was break down.

Dylan was murmuring words that just didn't seem to make sense to him. But the sounds that he could make out over his own hitching breaths were comforting. So were the hands on his waist and back.

For all of his annoyance at the elder Michalchuk at the moment, his pushing was needed to make himself realize that he never really dealt.

Dylan let him cry for as long as he needed. It was only when he pulled back from Dylan's arms, that he notice that Dylan, too, had tears in his eyes.

"Dyl'? What's wrong?" he reached up and touched where a tear was making its way down Dylan's cheek. "Why are you crying?"

Dylan blinked and looked away for a second before looking back down at Marco. "It's just...today, a lawyer talked to me and you were brought up."

"A lawyer? Me?" he was confused. "Is it about my parents? Are they going to take me away from your home?"

"No, no. It was about Paige's rape case." Dylan sighed. "It was the defense lawyer and he was bugging me about you. I think he is going to try and ask you questions."

"Paige's rape?" confusion was building with each word. "What? Why?"

"Look, did you ever hear of some problems with a basketball player from Bardell named Dean?"

"Yeah, but I thought he just dumped her."

"No, he_ raped_ her. And she's taking him to court." Dylan's voice took on an incredibly cold tone that Marco had never heard before. "And now his lawyer is bothering me about being gay. And don't ask me why, because I don't have a clue."

"And you're upset." it was more of a statement than a question.

Dylan nodded. "It's just," he sighed again, "just that I know this is going to dredge up all this horrible feelings about my sister, about being who I am, and if that isn't enough, they are going to drag you into it and try to hurt you too."

"I'm going anywhere." Marco simply stated, staring at Dylan, whose blue eyes looked slightly surprised.

But the words seemed to work and Dylan seemed to relax. With a sweeping motion, Dylan scooped Marco back into his arms and tucked him under his chin.

"You're not going anywhere."

Marco felt sure of something for the first time in awhile.

"I'm not going anywhere."


	7. Dreams

**AN:** Wow. Another part and it is the one where it all goes wrong. And I was amazed that the last part was 13 pages, well this one is 16. It seems that each part gets a little bit longer and this series is 12 parts long so I am scared that if I continue like this, at how long part 12 will be.

I really want to finish this before the new season starts. I don't want to be influence by what happens, since it obviously deals with Paige's trial. So blah, I need to get writing more and stop with all the one-shots. Though I really kinda want to continue the Jay-Marco friendship thingy. Meh.

**Disclaimers:** No owny Degrassi: TNG (do I really need to keep typing this, seven parts in?) nor Star Trek: Voyager or Pokemon.

* * *

**Part 7:** _Dreams_

* * *

_All the dreams,  
We built up from the ground,  
They never believed them,  
They just tore them down...  
- "From the Heart"_

_----------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Through her earphones, Paige Michalchuk became aware of a knocking on her bedroom door.  
Lifting one earpiece up, she listened again.

Sure enough, there came another slight knock.

"Come in." It couldn't be her brother, unless he suddenly developed a privacy gene within the last  
24 hours, because he tended to just barge into any room, regardless if the occupant was decent or  
not.

The door opened to reveal their new house-mate, Marco del Rossi. He hovered in the doorway as  
if he wasn't sure if he really was welcomed inside her room.

Removing the headphones and turning off her CD player, she motion for him to come in all the  
way. "Shut the door behind you." she told him, for her brother was still lurking about, just ready  
to burst into her room unexpectedly; the probability of a Dylan arrival was higher now that his  
boyfriend was in the room.

_Boyfriend._ That was strange.

But cute in a way.

"What's up Marco?" she asked as the other boy continued to stand awkwardly just inside her  
room.

He was looking around at her posters and clothes that seemed to be strewn everywhere.

"I thought you'd be cleaner." he remarked as he eyed a bra on the carpet.

She laughed, partly in embarrassment, but not bothering to remove the undergarment from its  
(rightful in her mind) place on the floor. "Yeah, well you thought wrong. So what brings you  
here?"

Once again she motioned for him to come closer and join her on the bed. With Marco, she felt  
safe. It was almost like the same feeling she had with her brother. It didn't bother her that there  
she was, lounging on her bed, make-upless, with her hair haphazardly pulled back in a sloppy  
ponytail, wearing a tank top with a bunny rabbit on it, Degrassi athletic pants (complete with  
holes in the seams), and blue fuzzy slippers that read NEW YORK NEW YORK on them. If it  
had been Spinner, she would have felt embarrassed or she would have carefully chosen a pajama  
set that would have at least matched and looked a little sexy.

Not like the dumpy one she was currently sporting.

But she knew that Marco wasn't about to hit on her as soon as he sat down the edge of the bed  
and that was a nice change when hanging out with members of the opposite sex.

"I just wanted to tell you something." he sounded a bit nervous to her but she didn't know if it  
was because he was sitting on her bed, in her room, or if had something to do with what he was  
going to tell her.

"What, hon?"

"It sounds cheesy, but," he took a breath, "but I admire you."

Paige sat up a little straighter and pulled her pillow up into her lap. "What? Why?"

"Dylan told me what happened with you and that Dean guy. And all you went through? The way  
you handled it? You were amazing, Paige."

She actually felt her face heat up. That was the sweetest thing any guy had ever told her without  
some ulterior motive. "Thank you, Marco. I'm just sorry that you are going to have to be dragged  
into this."

"Dylan, in one of those testosterone-induced moments of macho-bravado, vowed that, well lets  
use the term that he used: no 'goddamned, sneaky, conniving, slime coated slugs, who should  
have been left to die when they were born, rapist supporting, defense snake-lawyers' were ever  
going to talk to me." Marco seemed to relax a bit more as he let out a small laugh. "You brother  
has a way with words."

"He can get just slightly overprotective sometimes. I can't imagine the rage he'd be in if Dean  
would have done something to his car instead of me."

"Oh we'd still be going to trial, just it would be a murder trial and Dylan would be the defendant."

"No kidding." Paige smiled. "But really, Marco, thank you for telling me that. It means a lot to  
me."

Marco pulled her other pillow into his lap, "No problem. I really mean that too."

"Thanks. Now speaking of my brother and his oh-so-uncontrollable burst of emotion, didn't know  
that you two were an item." Paige felt herself slip into super-gossip mode.

"Uh, me neither. At least I wasn't sure until Dylan opened his big mouth."

"Oh c'mon, it's cute."

"If you say so."

"Where is that creep anyway? And why are you hanging out with the female Michalchuk instead  
of the male version?"

Marco laughed and rolled his eyes, looking more like the pre-parental problem Marco that she  
remembered. "Oh I was with him for the past several hours, but you see, there is this Star Trek:  
Voyager marathon on and I can't seem to get his attention."

Paige blinked. "He is watching Star Trek and leaving his boyfriend to hang out with his sister?"  
she shook her head. "He certainly didn't learn his dating habits from me, that's for sure."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think that he had a crush on the captain. But on this Star Trek, the  
captain is female."

Paige laughed and rolled her eyes. "I am in no way, related to that freak that is currently sitting in  
front of a TV watching some dork show."

Marco tilted his head thoughtfully, "I don't know, it's kind of cute."

"Cute that my brother is a complete nerd?" Paige scoffed. "I think not."

"It could be worse. He could be secretly into Pokemon or something more dorky than that."

Paige smiled at her newfound roommate, "Thank god for small favors, huh?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Emma Nelson opened her locker to find the same picture that haunted her of her loss friendship, in  
plain view. Once again she had forgotten to take it out of her locker.

She suppressed a groan that wanted to be let out as she slammed her locker shut as soon as she  
opened it.

This school morning that feeling of dread around it that usually signified a bad day. When the  
morning felt this bad already and first period hadn't even begun, then she knew things were just  
going to go downhill from there.

As she spun away from her locker she came face to face with the same person that was in the  
picture imprisoned in her locker.

Manny Santos stood there, dressed in a much more toned down outfit from the other day. But it  
wasn't the fact that Manny's stomach was covered by a tasteful jacket that threw her off, but  
instead it was the lack of hatred on her face.

"Manny?"

"Em', I just wanted to say, I'm sorry." Manny took a deep breath, "I totally overreacted."

Emma was surprised at this turnaround. "Uh, it's okay, Manny."

Manny smiled and Emma was reminded of all the fun times that they use to have together. And from  
the look on Manny's face, she seemed to remember the times too.

"Hey, Em'? Do you want to hang out tonight? We could binge on Ben &Jerry's and popcorn, watch  
some Disney movies and talk about our favorite rock stars."

Emma smiled. "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Cool, I'll come over at 7 tonight."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So Del Rossi, you gonna tell us what the hell happened yesterday?" it was actually Craig  
Manning who asked the question that had plagued the other members of Downtown Sasquatch  
throughout the morning classes.

Marco had just stepped into the cafeteria with his bagged lunch hanging at his side. To Craig, it  
seemed like a sign that just maybe, his suspicions were incorrect.

The question seemed to jolt Marco out of the self-induced daze that he had been walking with.

"Uh, what was that guys?" he asked as he hesitantly joined his friends at their usual table.

Jimmy laid it out for him. "Yesterday. Paige's brother comes in, flippin' out, only to have you  
equally flip out on us, all leading to the dramatic revelation that you got your self a boyfriend."

Jimmy half smiled. "What gives? What's been going on?"

Craig watched as Marco stalled answering by pulling out and setting up his food. For a minute  
Craig was distracted by the neatly printed labels on the food items that struck a familiar cord in  
him memory.

He idly noticed that Spinner, too, had seen the writing and was looking at them in interest.

"Well, Dyl' was worried about Paige and me, and him being the way he is, he hurried over there  
to see exactly how we were doing."

"And why was he worried?" Craig pressed. Spinner was now looking away from the  
conversation, which meant that he already knew what was going on. How did that happen? And  
why hadn't he shared the information?

"He was uh...worried...because-"

"He was worried because my rape case was going to trial." Paige Michalchuk appeared at  
Spinner's side looking more than slightly annoyed.

Craig and Jimmy stared at her in shock. So that's what the bad thing was. He had known that  
something real bad had gone down last year but he didn't realize how bad. He had thought that it  
had been a bad break up, at worst the guy from Bardell had hit her or something (which would  
explain her intense hatred for Rick, besides from the obvious) but not actually rape.

Paige sat down between Spinner and Marco and pulled out her own lunch. It looked like Marco  
and Paige wanted to avoid the 'Around the World' cafeteria lunch today, it was Japan after all,  
and Sheila's sushi was pretty terrifying.

"Yeah, I was raped." she said to the two stunned expressions. "And now I am fighting back and  
lawyers are involved so I really can't talk much about it."

"I understand," Jimmy shook his head sadly, looking like he was still reeling. "Man, that is heavy.  
How are you holding?"

"Been better." she admitted. "But now I am after him, not the other way around. So that makes  
things a little better." she opened up her sandwich baggy.

It was then that it hit Craig. The familiar labels on Marco's lunch were the same labels that Paige  
would have on her food whenever she decided to forgo the caf's food. All of Craig's suspicions  
were back at full force.

He couldn't hold it in anymore. He had to ask.

"Marco are you staying at Paige's house?" he blurted out.

It was Paige and Marco's turn to look shocked. "What?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Spinner looked hard at the matching lunches and then understood where Craig was going. Craig  
realized that Spinner had known of his girlfriend's rape, his friend's now not so single status, but  
not the new living arrangement. "Honeybee?" he asked, with a raised eyebrow of his own.

Marco sighed and gestured with his hand to Paige. "They are gonna find out sooner or later, you  
can go ahead and tell them." he whispered.

Paige nodded slightly, seeming to understand why Marco couldn't tell them for himself. "Look,  
guys, keep it quiet but, yes. Marco is living with me and Dylan for the immediate future."

Craig sat there, with his lunch momentarily forgotten. This was quickly becoming the Lunch of  
Revelations; if the lunch when Ashley announced Manny's pregnancy was the same as this one,  
then he'd pass out with all this information.

"Why are you staying there?" Spinner demanded.

"My parents kicked me out." Marco's voice had taken on that dead tone that he had been  
adopting for the past couple of days.

"Why?" Craig asked.

Marco met his eyes and though it was a serious subject, he had a slight 'duh' look in his eyes.

"Because I'm gay." he responded with a tone loaded with gallows humor.

Jimmy looked pissed off. "But what in the hell?" he shook his head in anger. "How the hell could  
they justify that for kicking you out?"

Craig realized that out of all of Marco's male friends, Jimmy had been the one to first immediately  
accept his sexuality and was the one to found him on the night of his bashing. Just mentioning  
bashers would get a bigger rise out of Jimmy than Marco or Dylan. Craig remembered that night  
as well, getting that phone call from Jimmy, telling the rest of them that he was with Marco and  
the cops. Paige had been so out of her mind, worried, while Spinner had been silent with warring  
emotions.

Of course they didn't know that Marco had been beaten because he was gay, instead Marco had  
told them that he had been jumped for his shoes.

They all had been worried nonetheless.

Even Spinner.

And they all didn't really believe the shoe story either, not off of Church street.

Even Spinner.

Marco just looked tired. "My parents come from a different country, not to mention a different  
era. To them, I'm a sinner heading straight to hell and I bring shame onto the Del Rossi name.  
According to their beliefs, I should have stopped using that name now and just go by Marco."

Craig nodded and looked at his glass of water on the table. "Things get a little bit clearer."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ellie Nash opted to stay home and wait for any word on her father instead of going to school and  
leaving a call from the Middle East up to chance. Trusting her drunken mom to relay information  
was like playing Russian Roulette and she didn't want to take those slim odds.

So there she was laying on her floor staring at the way her hand curled up into a slight fist. It  
wasn't the most exciting thing she could be doing (maybe reading up on the Berlin Wall and its  
reasons for construction for the history project would have been more productive) but this was all  
the activities that she had energy for.

The urge to just reach over for the razor blade that was hidden on the lip of wood behind her desk  
or open her backpack for the compass was growing with every minute she laid there staring at her  
hand.

She couldn't call Sean or Marco at this time. They were both in school. And she didn't want to  
burden Marco anymore; if she were in his place, she'd be slicing her arms open in record time and  
that was a scary thought for how he was dealing.

But enough of Marco, was there going to be any word on her father?

She hated not knowing for sure. He could be doing fine, and her mom exaggerated, or he could  
have died for all she knew. This uncertainty was killing her.

But she did not move from the floor.

Even though her gaze was on her hand, it was like she was always aware of the compass and the  
razor's location. Their proximity was burned into her mind.

Why have things gotten so hard.

With each year, things had become progressively harder to bear. She could actually look back on  
the 'good old days' like she was already eighty years old and longed for the days when she and  
Marco use to play tag at their elementary school or at the park while their parents discussed pasta  
recipes. She could always run faster than Marco but he knew all the best hiding places so that  
when they played hide and go seek, she'd be 'it' for hours trying to find him. Then when 'Make  
Believe' was the popular game of choice, her house was the best because of all her father's army  
clothes and her mother's fine dresses and pearls that were reminiscent of a time in the 1950s. It  
was funny, but now that she thought of it, she could remember a time when they had switched  
roles for one afternoon and she had geared up in her dad's fatigues and Marco had on her  
mother's nice sweater and pearls. Looking back at that, when Marco's dad had driven over to  
pick his son up and saw what they were doing, (her dad had thought it was adorable and snapped  
a picture, which she still had somewhere) Mr. Del Rossi had flipped out and dragged the little boy  
out of the house , scolding him in Italian all the way. After that Marco never wanted to play  
'Make Believe' again.

She felt so old. But in all reality, she wasn't and that scared her.

When had she become the parent in this household?

Her mother had been up before she had, drinking the morning away. She had consumed an entire  
bottle of vodka before Ellie had even climbed out of bed and made her way into the kitchen for  
some breakfast. She never asked her daughter why she wasn't going to school that day, and  
instead choosing to wander into the kitchen, herself, just to grab another bottle. She had never  
even acknowledged Ellie at all.

Ellie had ignored her mother as well, it was pointless to try to  
even strike up a conversation and  
by the rate she was going, she was going to be passed out by 10 am.

Leaving Ellie to clean up the puke and the empty bottles strewn everywhere.

So she had gone to her room and laid down on the floor and didn't bother to move for hours.

Waiting for a phone call.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dylan Michalchuk had never been so happy to get home from school as he did that day. The  
weekend was slowly approaching and he was thanking all gods that there were that it was  
Thursday which meant that he just had to survive tomorrow before it was a two-day binge of  
lounging around doing exactly jack-crap.

He knew a certain couch that had his name on it with a remote that was going to surgically  
attached to his hand and no one, not even his mom with a plate of her famous kielbasa and eggs  
was going to move him. (He could always eat those said kielbasa and  
eggs from the couch and  
with one hand)

Not to mention that it was only a couple more weeks of Degrassi and then he was free! He smiled  
at that thought and collapsed back onto his bed, once again in a slightly uncomfortable position  
but being the person that he was, he didn't bother to move.

The more and more he was thinking of what was beyond Degrassi and the more the idea of taking  
a year off of school seemed really good. That was, if no scout from some really prestigious  
hockey school wanted his talented self and offered him a full ride, then he'd taking a year off to  
practice hockey more and work to save money. (and stay with Marco)

Speaking of said boyfriend, where the hell was he? And way was he laying here on his bed all  
alone and thinking to himself?

Getting himself up, which was quite an effort, he headed to the guest room which was really  
becoming Marco's room. He poke his head in without knocking, (Paige tried to get him to break  
his no-knocking habit but he couldn't help it) but it didn't matter because Marco wasn't in there.

So he spun around and headed in the other direction, Paige's room.

"Paige have you've seen Marco?" he stopped as he opened the door and took in the sight in front  
of him.

Paige and Marco were lounging on her bed flipping through some teen magazines. They both  
looked up at his barging in.

"Dyl'!" uh-oh, Paige sounded mad. "Don't you even knock?"

"Paige, you're my sister, plus female, therefore if you had been changing in here, I wouldn't have  
been bothered. Slightly disturbed but that is all. Did I mention you are my sister." he leaned  
against the door frame. "What are you two doing?"

"Discussing the merits these 'Totally Hot Hotties of 2004'" Marco dead panned as he idly flipped  
another page in the magazine.

Dylan raised an eyebrow. "There is something seriously wrong with you checking out guys with  
my sister."

Paige laughed. "Oh c'mon, we check out guys together all the time, why is it any different with  
Marco? He has better taste in my book."

"Damn straight he does. He has me." Cue big cheesy smug grin. "And that answers your question.  
It is different because I am dating him. No gossiping with my sister."

"Oh but she was just telling me how you still sleep with your baby blanket." Marco looked across  
the bed at Paige, "What does he call it again? Binky?"

"Paige!" Dylan growled. His sister was so dead.

"So it's true?" Marco actually squealed with incredulity. "You still have it?"

The big cheesy smug grin was gone and not it was time for Dylan's evil death glare 'o doom. But  
Paige had seen that look before and didn't look afraid. "You are going to die soon, Michalchuk."  
he hissed at her before turning to Marco. "Yeah, so?" he tried not to sound so pouty but it  
couldn't be avoided. His pride had just been stepped on, spit on, trashed, and brow-beaten into  
submission.

Marco sat back on his elbows and smiled. "So, it's cute. I still have my stuffed dog Benji." a  
faraway look passed over his eyes. "Well, I did. He is still at my parent's house. So I don't know  
for sure what happened to him."

They were all silent for a minute until they heard Mr. Michalchuk get home from work.

"Dylan, Paige, Marco! I'm home!" they heard him call. It was strange to hear Marco's name in  
the familiar after-work call.

"Hi dad!" all three chorused, earning a laugh from Mr. Michalchuk as he climbed the stairs.

"What are you three doing in there?" he joined Dylan in the doorway.

"Paige was just telling Marco about some of the less-than savory aspects of my home-life." Dylan  
rolled his eyes.

"You mean about Binky?"

"Da-ad!" Dylan threw his hands up in disgust. "I get no privacy it this house!" he stormed off  
back to his room with Paige and Marco's giggles following him.

"This coming from the son who has an aversion to knocking on doors?" he heard his father call  
after him.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Craig Manning was ready to give up on studying for the night. Being in the same room, admitting  
it was a garage, with Ashley Kerwin was enough to make one's mind wander. Not to mention it  
still felt like he was reeling from today's lunch.

"So America agreed to the SEATO thing. Which was one of their 'reasons' for entering the  
Vietnam conflict." Ashley read out loud while marking some notes down.

He continued to stare off into space.

"Craig? Are you even trying to get any information down?" Ashley had that annoyed tone to it.

"Huh? Oh sorry." he reached across the table to pull a book towards him under a pretense of studying.

"Craig are you okay?" Ashley looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. The annoyance was gone  
from her voice, but the strange concern was going to be the end of him.

When had the hatred disappeared?

"I- no." he sighed and pushed the book away again. "Listen, Ash, I just need to tell you something,  
and I want to you be kind in your vicious rebuttal which I am certain is coming as soon as I close  
my mouth."

"Stop babbling and just tell me, then you'll get my reaction."

"Ash, I miss you." Craig dropped his eyes to the ground as he refused to see the look of mocking that  
was sure to be in her eyes. He had felt those words building up every minute he spent not fighting  
with Ashley but now he was a loser to let them out.

_Oh crappy mc-crap crap._

Ashley didn't respond for a few moments, which seemed to stretch on for forever. But then he felt her  
move to lean over close to him. She pressed a soft kiss on his cheek and whispered in his ear.

"I missed you too."

Craig pulled back slightly to look her in the eyes. "Ash, I am so sorry, I didn't want to ever hurt you."

She was smiling. "There. You meant it."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ellie Nash didn't bother to get up for any dinner that night. Her mother was still passed out on the  
couch and the smell of the alcohol that permeated throughout the house turned her stomach, making  
any possible choice for dinner unappetizing.

There had been no phone call.

She had tried not to break down and cry, because that was all she felt like doing, she needed to be  
the strong one. Her mom was in no shape to take that role. But it was getting too hard.

She didn't know what to do.

Calling anyone was still not an option; she didn't want to tie up the lines in case her father called. But  
it was growing late and the possibility of that phone call grew dimmer with every tick of her wall  
clock.

The house was hopelessly quiet, the puking had ended earlier and she didn't bother to put any TV on,  
so Ellie was left with the buzzing of her own thoughts.

_Why hadn't there been a call?_

_Was daddy okay?_

_Is he alive?_

_I thought things were getting better..._

In an instance everything shattered and she pulled herself upright. Feeling detached, she stuck her  
hand inside the crack between the wall and her desk and found the hidden razor blade. The  
disconnection between mind and arm continued as she placed the edge to the underside of her forearm.

But she hesitated; breaking the moment.

She knew that Suave still checked her arm on her weekly visits and were her messed of thoughts really  
worth the drama that would follow the discovery? Sean would know and no matter how much he denied  
that the scars didn't bother him, she was sure a freshly bleeding scab would.

Her fingers twitched on the slim sheet of metal.

And brought the edge down on the exposed skin of her right thigh, just below the hem of her pajama  
shorts.

_When will I know what happened?_

_Will daddy die?_

_Is he already gone?_

_Why can't this all be a dream?_

It is funny, blood never poured out with a razor, it always just beaded up. Like red constellations on  
a white sky.

But the stars always ended up bleeding together into stark lines set in a harsh relief.

The thoughts stopped.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marco del Rossi had left the comfort of Paige's room to the bare reality of the guest room. Paige had  
been a nice escape for awhile, but now it was time to get right down to it, no matter how hard or how  
much he didn't want to face it.

His history project laid open on the small desk.

Spinner had wanted to the Soviet side of the crisis, stating that he wanted to do the side with "_the  
dudes that wanted to blow everything up."_ So here he was, trying to find the reasons of why America  
didn't want the missiles in Cuba.

So far all he had marked on a piece of paper was:

**'Reason 1:** _Missiles = death. Death = Not Good.'_

He was sure that wasn't about to earn an A on his side, so he had to actually sit down and read some  
more.

So he forced himself to read the chapter in his text.

By the time that he read the last boring word in the book, he was sure of two things. One was that he  
definitely needed to rent that movie because reading all these transcripts of the tape recordings that JFK  
made was boring and Two, he was really thirsty now. Not that number two had anything to do with the  
project.

But it was a great distraction.

Marco slammed the book shut and quickly left his room in search of something thirst quenching. It  
was growing later, so he crept down the stairs, incase the elder Michalchuks had already turned  
in or something. He already felt terrible about imposing himself on them.

But as he neared the kitchen, he heard raised voices. Dylan and Mr. Michalchuk were in there,  
apparently arguing. Marco turned to avoid seeing a family fight until Dylan's angry voice rang out.

"I don't want Marco here! He can't stay here!"

It felt like his feet had frozen and his mind had locked onto that angry statement.

_"I don't want Marco here! He can't stay here!"_

In an instant his feet unfroze and he was running up the stairs, back to the guest room. The words were  
repeating over and over, like some sick mantra. All he could focus on was the straight fact that Dylan  
didn't want him in his house. There was an underlying sense of confusion at the sudden switch of emotion  
but it didn't cover the words that he had heard.

He grabbed the worn duffel bag that he had brought with him when he had ran from his parent's home  
and shoved some various articles of clothing into it. It didn't matter what he had stuffed in there, just the  
sooner he got out of this house the better.

When he was done, he grabbed the notebook where he had been writing his homework notes down, he  
flipped to a blank page and quickly scribbled a note to Paige and left it open on desk where she was  
sure to find it.

He'd feel sad later, he just needed to get away.

As quietly and as quickly as he could, he snuck down the stairs once more and was out the front door  
while Dylan and his father still held their heated argument in the kitchen.

With the duffel bag slung over his should, Marco fled into the night.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Craig Manning felt the moment shatter like a crystal glass with the murmur of three deadly words.

He and Ashley had abandoned the history project in favor for the couch in the garage. Things had been  
going like they had been before Manny, before he screwed up, before everything. His lips had found  
Ashley's again and he had ceased to think about anything else.

But Ashley had brought the moment to a screeching halt when she whispered, "I love you." into  
his ear.

The words in themselves wasn't the actual killer of moment, but it was in fact his hesitation.

Ashley pulled away from him to look him in the eyes. "But you still don't feel the same way." she stated,  
the familiar coldness setting in.

"No, that's not it."

"You still love Manny."

"No!"

Ashley disentangled herself from him and climbed angrily to her feet and groped for her jacket. "What is  
it then, huh Craig? Just wanted to add more numbers to the list of girls that you slept with? Is that it?"

"Ash, listen to me, I do love you!" there at least he got it out.

"Wrong. If you did, then it wouldn't be so hard to tell me." She sighed and rolled her eyes skyward. "I  
am such an idiot. I can't believe I fell for that charm."

He was starting to get angry. How was she so certain of why it was so hard for him to admit it. "Yeah,  
just storm out. You never let me explain anything!"

"All you do is lie!"

"Me, _Mr. Nice Guy_, huh?" he sarcastically quipped.

Ashley's eyes narrowed. "Fine, you smug bastard, tell me! Let me hear this new batch of lies."

"You say I'm self-absorbed, but look at you! The most pain you've ever felt is when I cheated on you!  
You've never heard someone tell you that you are a worthless piece of shit and then _hit _you until  
you're crying in a ball on the floor while that very same person leans over and tells you how much  
they _love_ you. That's never going to happen to you. The words _'I love you'_? They've almost lost all  
meaning to me because I was never sure if the next damn time I heard them, if I was going to get the  
shit beat out of me. Have someone do that to you and then tell me that the reason why saying _'I love you'_  
is so hard is because I don't mean it."

Ashley looked stunned at his tirade. But the memories of his father were too much to bear. The anger was  
still there, right beneath his skin and he wasn't letting it go so easily this time.

"Craig, I-"

"No! It's a bitch, huh? Hearing that other people have problems huh? Guess what Ash, everyone falls,  
not just you."

Her anger was back at full force. "You're more like your dad that you think, Craig. You didn't change.  
You tell me that you care, that you'd never hurt me and then you turn around and do just that. You  
never raised your fist to me, but you fucked with my mind, Craig, that's just as bad. And not just me  
either. You messed with Manny, telling her you loved her too and then hurt her. Emotion or physical;  
_like father, like son."_

And then she was gone. And there he was, in the cold garage, left with a ghost that he couldn't escape.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The popcorn was being popped in the microwave, two new pints of Ben & Jerry's were sitting in the  
freezer, plain vanilla and Chunky Monkey, the newest issues of some cheesy teen magazines were  
sitting on her bed and all of their favorite Disney movies were sitting next to the DVD player. There  
was only one thing missing.

Manny.

Emma Nelson sat on her bed staring at the clock. It was now past 8 and no Manny. She had told her  
that she was going to be there at 7. Emma had given her a 30 minute leeway, but an hour had gone  
past and still nothing.

Giving into temptation, she grabbed the phone and punched in Manny's phone number. Manny's mother  
answered on the second ring.

_"Hello?"_

__  
"Hey Mrs. Santos, is Manny there? She was suppose to come over to watch some movies at seven,  
but she isn't here."

_"Oh Emma, that's strange, she left at around seven to go to a party that a friend was holding. She  
didn't say anything about heading over to your place."_

Emma felt like she had been punched in the stomach. "Oh. Okay. Um, yeah I think I remember that  
party now." she lied. "Thank you." She hung up with Mrs. Santos good-bye ringing in her ear.

The microwave dinged as the popcorn finished.


End file.
